King Edmund's Crusade
by Narnian Pricklepig
Summary: During the early years of the Golden Age, King Edmund sets out on a crusade to free the Lone Islands from the Witch's rule. And he is accompanied by a woman on a journey of her own. Adult OC protagonist, no romance.
1. Stranded in the Snow

**A/n:** The following story was the first piece of Narnia fanfiction I wrote (back in 2005) and has been re-worked, re-edited and re-posted a number of times. The story was initially well-received, and I hope that by reposting it can find a new audience to enjoy it. It is undergoing editing, revision etc. with particular advice from my friends Colleen and Hilary.

This story is an explicitly pro-Christian piece, contains many original characters, is set during the Golden Age, has no romance as a central element of the tale, and uses metafictional elements. It is also fairly action-intensive and some elements might be considered violent.

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Usual disclaimers apply – I do not own Narnia or canon characters.

**Part One : Experience**

**Chapter One : Stranded In The Snow**

"I don't normally do this," lied Elizabeth, shifting her weight in the chair and rearranging the cutlery before her for the seventh time.

"Don't do what?" Michael, immaculate and immobile in black cotton and linen, had stationed his silverware with imperceptible movements minutes before. He gazed at her through the flickering candle flame with unreadable eyes, his gaze not straying to the open neck of her blouse and the hint of cleavage artfully revealed. "Eat in the evening, or dip your sleeve in the soup while you are doing it?"

She jerked her hand clear just in time to save her Versace as the waiter deposited an olive-wood platter of flat bread between them. She nodded her thanks and then – as he walked away – answered somewhat stiffly. "No, just go on dates with strange men I've only just met." Michael's eyes hooded deeper and his gaze fell to the tablecloth as the first two fingers of his right hand touched his brow, breast and shoulders. With a hurried, almost guilty air, Elizabeth swatted an imaginary fly away from her.

Michael reached out and took a piece of bread and broke it in half. He held one out to her, which she took. "Is this a date, then?" he asked. "I'm so unfamiliar with them I didn't recognize it." He paused and dipped the bread in his soup. "And I'm not sure I recognize myself as a strange man, either." Elizabeth colored

"Well, I didn't mean . . . that is, I . . ." she began. Michael didn't smile, but it might have been nice to think he could have done.

"Do not be afraid," he said, "this is all nothing more than it is. You're stranded in an undisclosed European city at the gates of Christmas by snow at your destination airport. You claimed not to know the city well, but I seemed to, and – feeling I could be trusted and warming to me – you asked me if we might have dinner together." He paused, and watched her eat for a moment. "You wanted a Guardian Angel, or perhaps a simple guide in a foreign land." He spread his hands – elegant in their Fibonacci proportions and with the Golden Ratio creating illumination that outshone the candle. She laughed, a trifle nervously.

"Well, yes, you're right," she stammered, "I just didn't want you to get the wrong idea." A pause. "But you seem to have quite the . . . _right_ idea," she continued a touch bitterly. "I'm sorry. Although why you chose to tell me it in such detail is beyond me."

Michael made a throw-away gesture. "It's a device to advance the plot without using a flashback, pay it no more mind." She laughed again, and turned just enough of her attention to her food to allow her to size up the man seated opposite her under some sort of cover. He was tall with the build of a Greek temple-statue underneath plain, smart, nondescript black clothes – she felt overdressed in the heels aching her feet and underdressed in the skirt that hitched at her thighs. His hands that rested on the white tablecloth were lifted from anatomical textbooks, covered in gloves of perfect skin. Under one of those hands a leather-bound book rested, gleaming in black and gold. She strained to read the title on the spine, expecting the words "HOLY BIBLE". Instead, she saw the legend "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".

She looked up to find Michael's deep eyes looking into hers. "Narnia," she said, embarrassed and recollecting at the same time.

"You read the stories when you were younger," said Michael – it was not a question. She nodded.

"I was read the first by my aunt when I was ill with measles," she said, smiling at the memory, "I read the others myself a few years later – most of the others. I think I stopped somewhere after 'The Voyage of the . . .'" She trailed off.

"_Dawn Treader_", said Michael. "They get to Aslan's country."

"Yes!" A look of childlike joy spread on her face. "I remember that – Aslan said they could never go back to Narnia, and I wanted so . . ." She stopped, embarrassed again, as the waiter came and took the soup bowls away. She colored, but Michael's eyes brooked no refusal. She plowed on, more restrained, more aware of her age now. "I wanted so badly to get to Narnia, now that Lucy couldn't. I thought maybe Aslan would let me." She paused, the expression on Michael's face unreadable. "I was very young," she said lamely.

"Are you still?" asked Michael as the waiter placed the main course in front of them and withdrew. She seemed to ignore him, perhaps more lost in her reminisces than she was willing to admit.

"And at the end of the story, Aslan said he was in our world too, and he was just known by a different name. He told Lucy she would have to learn to call him by that name."

Michael's voice was the deep purr that could be mistaken for a lion's. "And you searched?" She thought she knew where this was heading.

"The Narnia stories were a Christian allegory – I know that now." Her voice was hard and flat and deep and final. "I was too young to understand when I read them." She sawed a piece of meat off with unnecessary force. "I searched for Aslan – and tapped on the back of a fair few wardrobes – and I found nothing. And then I heard Lewis had written them to proselytize, and I felt . . ."

"Cheated," said Michael. Again, it was not a question.

"Yes," she said firmly, the year-on-year drips of resentment spilling from her. "Yes, I felt cheated. It's a crummy trick – telling a tale like that. I was educated by Jesuits, raised by Sisters." She tossed her knife down and raised her right hand, spreading the fingers and revealing the class ring on the third. "Notre Dame, Indiana," she snapped shortly, "I got it for years." She stopped, perhaps waiting for the inevitable question why a woman with a British accent attended an American university, looking for the opening that would allow her to drop names and places and influence. It never came, and so she said – finally – "There comes a time when you have to put fairy tales behind you." Michael's eyes were still unreadable. "You have to accept the truth."

"And the truth is?" he asked. Elizabeth remembered the prayer before the meal. She blushed again.

"I didn't mean to offend, I just . . . I'm sorry." She turned her attention to her dinner.

"You didn't," assured Michael. "I'm sorry you never found Aslan. I'm sorrier you gave up looking." He seemed to come to a decision. "No matter. You enjoyed the stories when you read them." She lifted her eyes to his and nodded. "And you loved Aslan while he was there."

He wasn't surprised to see tears in her eyes, but she was surprised to feel them there. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I did. And, you know what? I _miss_ him." Michael could have smiled, but he didn't.

"I think we are built for it."

oOo

It was snowing outside; the fluffy, white, loving snow of a Victorian Christmas card in a wedding-cake city winking in crystal and glass, opera-goers muffled in furs and playbills tripping through the synthetic gaslight towards _caffee und kuchen_. Elizabeth – flushed with one or two glasses of wine and jetlag and with stiletto heels slipping on the icy cobbles – linked her hand through Michael's arm in the artificial-intimacy of the professional escort. He gestured towards a glowing doorway – a coffee-house, dripping sticky gingerbread and choux pastry. She smiled her assent and the two of them moved towards the glowing portal.

Michael pushed it open with easy grace and allowed Elizabeth to walk through before him. She did so, shivering a little as a sprinkling of snow fell down her neck from the doorway. She pushed away a heavy sprig of pine-dark greenery someone had hung near the door and squinted into the light – now she was inside, the warm golden light of candles appeared to be replaced with something far colder, silvery-blue and above her. She stepped forward to let Michael enter behind her and looked up, gasping and stopping short in amazement.

The two of them looked around the dark pine forest they found themselves in – horizontal bands of stalled racing green topped with crisp white snow marked where the spoke-like branches sprang from the rimed trunks, rising like pyramidal ladders into the silver-blue moonlight that penetrated fadingly into the gap between the hills. Underneath the boughs, glutinous darkness dwelt like sediment, shadows of scudding clouds over the moon moving over the actinic snowbed and giving the impression of queasy water.

In front of them, driving away the corroded mint of the green and white with the pool of flickering golden light it stood in, a black iron gaslight reared its comforting imperfection above the scene. The panes of glass glittered in the moonlight, the sable iron wore icicles like a necklace and - in the heavy silence of the valley - the hiss of the gas was just audible.

Elizabeth – after spinning around and seeing nothing but more trees - broke that silence. "Impossible . . ." she began.

Michael reached into his pocket and drew out a knife; a matte-black device that straddled tool and weapon and hung in the hand like a good dueling pistol. Twisting a four-inch saw out of the carbon-fiber body, he walked to the nearest pine tree and bashed the hilt of the blade against one of the boughs. Snow and the odd needle scattered to his feet as he sawed through it near the trunk, angling towards the body of the tree. With a wrench, the bough separated from its parent and he set to work at it with a long, heavy blade.

"You've got a knife," murmured Elizabeth, pulling the collar of her coat around her neck, unable to do much more than gaze at the encroaching night and wonder.

"Of course I have a knife, I always have a knife. It's not that long after 1183 and I'm still not Greek," Michael said flatly, handing a trimmed length of tree to Elizabeth. "How much clearer can I make it?" She took it with a questioning hand as his reached up to her braided hair and, with a fluid grace that warmed her despite the chill, untwisted her ponytail out, pulling the length of ribbon clear with teasing ease. He bound a bundle of twigs to the end of her length of pine with a neat surgical knot.

"'The Lion in Winter'," she muttered automatically, as Michael reached up with a long branch and pushed open the glass door of the lantern, taking the improvised torch from Elizabeth. With infinite care, he pushed its wispy ends torch into the little flame, it guttering as - with a protesting splutter - the pine caught with a whiff of resinous smoke. He pulled the torch out and waved it gingerly to and fro, trailing a halo of dark smoke, as he pushed the tiny door shut.

"I wish we had one," he remarked dryly, offering her his hand. She took it, stepping to his side and snuggling into the crook of his arm. She looked up at him.

"Had a what?" she asked. He cast his eyes around, as if debating whether to leave the little clearing with its comforting lamp post, or strike out somewhere else.

"A Lion in this Winter," he said shortly, appearing to make his choice. "Come on, let's get under the trees. It's going to get colder as night falls - you won't want to be out in the open when it happens." He took two strides, but she didn't move, checking him as she held his hand.

"Michael," she said seriously, "Where are we?" He turned to look at her, his face expressing gentle amazement she hadn't realized.

"The western Lantern Waste of the land of Narnia," he said slowly, "Where else?" She planted her feet, wrenched her hand out of his and braced her arms akimbo.

"Don't make fun of me," she snapped, her face flushing. "Be serious." She looked up at him, catching his eyes. "Well?" He turned his gaze full upon her.

"Where else?" he asked. "A dense pine forest in the middle of a valley with a Victorian iron lamp post whose light is burning. A place we arrived at via a method you – if you had to put a name on it – would call 'magic'." She was not about to be swayed.

"Narnia is make-believe."

"Of course it is." Michael's statement was as flat and final as a slap in the face. "That doesn't make it any less real." As she prepared a rebuke, Michael handed her the torch and quietly folded a stiletto blade out of his knife. "However, there is one question which is more important than all these."

"Which is?" she asked.

"How fast can you run in those shoes?"

"What?" she began, but got no further as Michael's hand sped over the nape of her neck and grabbed her shoulder furthest from him, pulling her back and off her feet. The jerk and the flash of leaping, snarling, lupine gray were simultaneous, and as she spun into the snow she saw - through the spray of scattered crystals - Michael rolling backwards with what looked like a great gray dog in his arms.

The thing's teeth were clamped around Michael's forearm, him having jammed it in there to save his face. His right hand was buried in the matted fur of its belly, his muscles twisting with the effort. Convulsively, he kicked the beast off him, wrenching his hurled knife out of its guts as he did so. It hit the snow two yards away, whining and whimpering piteously amid the spilled loops of its intestines, giving off its life in little coiling wraiths of steam as the snow around it turned salty red.

And then Michael was up and his hand was under her arm, his ravaged sleeve snapping in the wind and lupine saliva and blood congealing on her coat, and the two of them were running as fast as they could and not looking back.

And then behind her came the sound that killed all doubt in her mind. Despite the fact she had never heard one before, she recognized a wolf's voice;

"Kill the Son of Adam, bring me the Daughter of Eve."


	2. Rescue at the Lamppost

**Chapter Two : Rescue at the Lamppost**

Elizabeth ran. Fear drove her.

Stumbling over roots and branches and her own shoes, her legs tangling in snow and terror and the hem of her skirt, she was half-dragged by Michael, blindly. Her breath rasped in her chest, daggers of ice lancing into her cheeks and lungs with every convulsive intake, her face shoving its way through a roiling wall of mist. She couldn't hear the snow-crisp crunches as the wolves loped after them, their death-gray paws breaking through the virgin snow. But, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the flickering shadows of her pursuers pacing her - jumping from static image to static image as the bars of the trees whipped past like a zoetrope.

She knew the wolves were gaining on them – she could feel them behind her, knowing they were closing. She so wanted this to be a bad dream, something she could wake from, but the fatigue and pain in her legs and chest told her this wasn't a nightmare. She really was here, in a strange forest, being chased by talking wolves. She ran harder.

A terrific blow on her left shoulder, spinning her around to face behind her. The teeth of a wolf snapping shut where the back of her head had been a splintered second before. Heavy paws smashing into Michael's braced arm, the hand still on her shoulder, and unlocking the elbow. Michael and the wolf tumbling like lovers as the knife glanced somewhere in the canine's ribs and scattered away among the snow.

Elizabeth rolled over and over, her world a spray of white through which she could hear the snarl of wolves and see the gleaming red and iron of lacquered horse's hooves. Those hooves rose, rearing, as she rolled under them and then came down with the force of a steam hammer, encaging her beneath the torso of a massive chestnut stallion.

Through the trunk-like legs of the horse, Elizabeth could see Michael and the wolf rolling over and over in the snow. The creature had ducked under his offered forearm and its fangs were snarling in his face, held back by a straining hand around its neck. More wolves – a dozen or more – were pouring into the clearing and launching themselves at the three riders standing in the snow.

The torso above her twisted oddly and a long, armored, grotesquely muscular arm reached down and grabbed her by the shoulder. With scarcely any effort, the rider hauled her on to the back of his horse. She scrambled into a seated position behind him as he reached for an arrow and nocked it to his bow, the muscles in his shoulders bulging beneath the wool and mail. From the other side of the trio of riders, an arrow left the string and impacted on a wolf with a fatal thud.

"Help him!" she shrieked, as the wolf clawed and snarled at Michael. The man in front of her drew his bow and tried to draw a bead on the wolf without hitting the man. The six-foot bow creaked uncertainly – there was no way to be sure.

"Throw him a sword!" cried the man in the center, his voice oddly high. Certainly, he was young. Elizabeth turned her head as the arrow held in front of her went flying into the chest of another wolf and a long, leaf-shaped blade landed in the snow by the rolling combatants.

As Elizabeth watched, the man in the center – little more than a boy, if the truth be told – drew his sword from a gules and or scabbard and raised it above the curly blond hair in which a thin golden circlet nestled. The blade glittered in the moonlight like a bar of frozen sunlight, sending splintered reflections stabbing into Elizabeth's eyes. She turned away from the boy in the red, gold and shining mail, looking down at Michael on the ground before her.

The sword had struck, bounced once and – before it hit the snow the second time – Michael's left hand had plucked it out of the air. The heavy bronze pommel crashed into the nape of the wolf's neck, snapping it like a marrow bone, as Michael vaulted back to his feet. The next wolf that leaped for him never made it – its head came away with a single backstroke. As another two arrows flew, Michael spun, switching the sword from his left hand to his right. A decisive downward stroke cracked the skull of another wolf.

As Michael braced his feet and placed both hands on the hilt, standing at relaxed guard, Elizabeth realized there was something _wrong_ with her position on the horse – she was sitting _behind_ someone, and yet was sitting too far forward for that. She ran her eyes down the broad back of the rider in front of her, seeking to see where the saddled was cinched.

There was no saddle, the back of the rider flowed into the back of the horse in front of her. The rider wasn't a rider at all – it was the torso of a Centaur, armed and armored in glittering mail and heavy wool, with thick chestnut hair rolling down his back, rough and harsh like a horse's mane. The backwash of excitement flowed through her veins and she felt faint, gripping at the waist of the torso in front of her to steady herself.

The young king was speaking – she breathed deeply to calm herself and closed her eyes as she listened.

"I killed your captain with this blade, vermin." His high voice carried well in the dark valley under the trees. "I will not soil it with your blood unless I have to. Fly, or I order the Centaurs to shoot." Elizabeth opened her eyes at the creaking of heartwood as longbows were drawn back. Slinking and snarling, the wolves slid away into the shadows under the trees as the young king leaped down into the snow.

Michael was finishing – with a handkerchief and a handful of ice – wiping the blade clean as the young man approached him. With elegant grace, he knelt before him and bowed his head, presenting the hilt of the sword. "Your majesty," he said softly.

"You know me?" The voice was careful and almost incredulous – humans were rare in Narnia for there were none native save him and his siblings; ones dressed in these sort of clothes rarer still.

"You are High King Peter of Narnia," said Michael. He stood as the boy motioned him to. "It would be fair to say I know _of_ you." Michael turned to the Centaur who had thrown the blade and offered it back to him.

The horse-man shook his maned head with a smile. "Keep it, Son of Adam – one who uses a blade so well should carry one," he said.

Peter turned to the Centaur as howls split the air, bracketing and surrounding them. "Hunting calls?" he asked, swinging himself into the saddle of his horse. The Centaur nodded, sniffing the air. "Your counsel, General Oreius?" The Centaur glanced at the woman seated on the back of his companion.

"The Daughter of Eve is not clothed for this weather, night draws in. The wolves do have us surrounded; we could fight, but victory is not assured." He looked down at Michael, who gave a barely perceptible shake of the head, and then back at Elizabeth. "This must be what Aslan wished you to find, sire. I see no profit in lingering." Peter's face twisted.

"Retreat rankles, General – I will not give up the Lantern Waste." Michael accepted Oreius' hand and swung himself onto the Centaur's back.

"Death will rankle more, your majesty," he said, "there is no point in risking a loss for a battle you do not need to win." The King looked over at the older man, a rebuke perhaps on his lips, and then bent his head in agreement.

"We ride for the Cair."


	3. In Cair Paravel

**Chapter Three : In Cair Paravel**

Elizabeth turned at the sound of the door, the heavy velvet of her dress swinging as she did so and the fur stole slipping from her shoulders. The clothes the ladies-in-waiting - girls with green skin and leafy hair and who rustled like Autumn as they walked - had given her were delightful; a gorgeous pageant of hand stitching, heavy embroidery, cloth of gold, velvet as thick as rugs and gemstones sewn into the seams. Above the flared bustle and laced bodice that gave her the curves she deserved the neckline extended from arm to arm with a folded-down collar, leaving her shoulders bare. Her hair was unadorned – Narnians obviously did not believe in tying it back – and it cascaded onto her shoulders. She had admired herself in the mirror relishing the beauty she saw there – the way the vertical lines towards the waist and the horizontal one at the shoulders gave her the imperious figure of a Queen. She knew for a fact – for the ladies-in-waiting had whispered it – Queen Lucy and Queen Susan were Wintering in Archenland, wherever _that_ was, and so she was, for her own intents and someone's purposes, the Queen of Cair Paravel.

Standing framed in the doorway, gleaming in gun-metal armor, stood Michael. A look of childlike joy broke on her face and she danced towards him, taking his hands and pulling him into the room. "Michael!" she cried. "Where have you been? I've been looking for you _everywhere_!"

"Quidquid omnipresens est, Deus est," said Michael, picking her stole from where it had fallen to the floor and draping it expertly around her shoulders, securing it with a small pin topped with a lion's head finial in gold, "Don't expect to find me everywhere – I was somewhere quite specific." She smiled and sashayed away, leaving him standing by the fire as she picked up a flagon of spiced wine and poured herself a goblet. She raised the jug and an eyebrow. He shook his head.

"Where were you then?" she asked, her voice muffled in the gilded goblet, and then – ignoring her own question – danced over to him again. "Have you _seen_ these clothes? And the view? And the tapestries? Oh, and the little Fauns and the Centaurs!" She clasped her hands before her. "It's just wonderful, it's better than I could have dreamed." She paused. "Why are we here?" Michael stood at parade-ground ease and looked down at her.

"That question requires a week's answer," he said. "Or none. And, in any case, it's far too early in the story to tell you – especially as your purpose here might be to discover your purpose here. Regardless," he plowed over her puzzled objections, "to answer the easier question; I have been in the Chamber of Instruments with King Peter and King Edmund. War lies on Narnia, and – knowing something of it – they wished for my aid and advice. Now they wish to speak with you."

Her eyebrows went scrambling up in surprise. "With me? Why?" Michael turned his statuesque face to her.

"The obvious reason would be those crossing from your side of the wardrobe door to theirs are rare at least, and uncommon at best." He shrugged within the leather and steel. "And perhaps these two boys are sick and tired of pushing paper flags and wooden armies across a painted land and would like to see the reason they fight." At her puzzled look he gently drew her to face the mirror. "Come now, men have fought _over_ many things in their lives, but every man fights _for_ the beautiful innocents left behind." She blushed, ashamed her previous arrogance at being a pseudo-Queen was revealed as cheap and tawdry in the luminous glow of his fair assessment of her. With one hand pushing the door open and one swinging the sword clear of any danger of tangling in her dress, he gestured her through. "Their Imperial Majesties await you at your earliest convenience." She inclined her head, amused at the idea of her obeying the wishes of two children . . . two children who would be nearly the age of her grandparents if they were real and they were all back home . . . and put her goblet down and walked through the door.

Michael fell into step beside her. The two of them had not had a chance to talk on the helter-skelter ride back from the Lantern Waste to the eastern coast of Narnia, arriving at the Cair after a chase all through the first night and all of the next day – broken only by a dawn break for a meager breakfast for her and Peter and gulped oats for the Centaurs and the King's horse. The last few hours of the journey were a blur for her; twenty-four hours on the back of a Centaur with little food had eroded any strength she had. It was a miracle she had even stayed awake; a miracle she should have known to put down to the air of Narnia in her lungs and sinews. For the last few miles leading to Cair Paravel – a rearing collection of white stone and leaded glass sparkling in the setting sun against the blackness of the winter night encroaching over the eastern ocean – she had been held on the back of the Centaur by a huge hand reaching behind his torso and gripping her wrists. She had dozed fitfully, vaguely aware of Michael, Peter and the Centaurs talking together around her, waking in a pool of warm lamplight as the pitch of the shod hooves swept up into the echoing blacksmith-noises of a courtyard. She had a recollection of a slim boy in warm gray velvet standing in a lantern's pool of golden light as Michael lifted her from the Centaur and carried her, unresisting and sleepy, up long, winding stone stairs and placed her in a soft, downy feather bed. A few minutes of annoying fussing with her hair and bedclothes, something warm in her mouth and throat that sent a languorous heaviness through her limbs, and then the blissful click of a door and abject darkness.

She had woken endless hours later to a crisp winter morning, with the rising sun shattering itself on crashing seas that battered the frost-smirched sand of the beach, billowing waves of fog roiling around the foundations of the citadel. The wide windows – leading onto a stone balcony and parapet festooned with what looked like Christmas decorations – were being flung open with a clatter by a young girl who looked to be half-tree while a second and third set up a small table by the window and held a thick robe for her shoulders.

And now – after being fed and fussed over and dressed and having none of her questions answered – she found herself in clothes fit for a Princess walking down a marble corridor past carved oaken doors and paintings and tapestries showing fantastical scenes next to a man who wore armor like he was born to it. She stopped short. "Michael!"

He stopped too. "Yes, Elizabeth?" he asked politely. She stumbled over the anger that was at least partially fear and gained her feet in inquiry again.

"How did we get here?" she asked. "This is Narnia! Narnia's not real!" Michael showed her open hands, encased in plain black leather gauntlets that reached mid-way down his forearms. Hung on the walls beside him were springs of holly and ivy, twisted into Yuletide bouquets.

"Do you feel you would be well-served by a discussion on the nature of reality, or shall I just tell you to watch _The Matrix_ again?" He seemed to consider. "Although, given your previous statements regarding Christian allegory, perhaps that is not the best suggestion I can make. In any event, what is real and what is not is hardly a relevant concept here – as far as you are concerned, this seems real." It was not a question, but she half-treated it as one.

"Yes, we are obviously here – this is obviously real." She gestured at the luxurious dress and the castle. "But how? Why?"

Michael seemed to consider. "Why are you asking me?" She looked exasperated, and then realized the futility of her position.

"Because you're the only one _to_ ask – no-one else here thinks Narnia is a story, Peter thinks it's real because it is real to him. I can't ask him – or the Fauns or Centaurs or anyone – because they don't share a common concept of what this place is." She paused, "Did Lewis base the stories on something that really happened? Is Narnia a real place – did Peter and the rest _exist_?"

Michael shook his head. "No – he had a Goddaughter called Lucy, and Eustace can be said to be his own appearance in the novels; an intellectual skeptic converted to Christianity. But the Narnia stories were not real – not in that sense." He paused, and gestured for the two of them to continue walking along the corridor. "Within the internal context of Lewis' works, Narnia could be said to be a very sophisticated parable told by Aslan for the benefit of the Pevensies – the four children? – Eustace and the rest. That reduces Narnia to an evangelical device, which – while an unpalatable suggestion to make given the fact the native Narnians seem to have free-will and intelligence – does find some support in the fact Narnia is born and dies entirely during the lifetime of Digory Kirke."

She shook her head in exasperation, so puzzled and fed-up by his intellectualism she didn't notice references to an armageddon she had never read. "You're acting as if Narnia isn't a fictional world, as if it's real!" He gestured at the archway they were passing under, pausing briefly to dip his head to the carved lion's head boss.

"Isn't it? But, regardless of where _we_ find ourselves, I was discussing it from _inside_ the story, as it were. Aslan – who isn't really an allegory for Christ, but rather _is_ Christ, coming as a Talking-Animal to a world of Talking-Animals – creates a whole world for the evangelization for a handful. Or maybe he creates a number of worlds and swaps people between them to teach them more important lessons."

"Okay, so we know what Lewis had in mind when he _made it up_, but that doesn't . . ." Michael plowed over her with a correction.

"Oh, I'm sure he never intended this analysis at all – this is added later on by theologians and literary critics. My brother and I have always been far too clever for our own good – I think it was his downfall."

She took a deep breath and ignored him. "That doesn't explain why we are here!" she snapped.

"I think it can do," he said smoothly. "Moving outside Aslan's motivations for creating Narnia, to Lewis' motivations for creating the Narnia Chronicles – at least in the latter stages of the process – we find Aslan and Peter and Lucy and all the rest are characters in a form of parable. He wrote those stories so the reader could learn something and be entertained in the process – or be entertained and learn something in the process, depending." He paused, looking at her. She shook her head showing incomprehension. He didn't sigh, nor was he patronizing "Taking those two motivations together – the desire of Aslan to teach Peter and the rest something, and the desire of Lewis to teach and entertain those reading the stories – I think we can conclude we are here as both pupils to learn something, and characters to teach the readers something."

She blinked a couple of times. "You're telling me I'm a character in a story? I find that _very_ hard to believe." He nodded reasonably.

"Of course you do – if you didn't it would rather kind of ruin your character. But don't worry if you don't believe it – I don't suppose their Imperial Majesties believe it either, but the audience certainly does." He stopped in front of a huge beaten brass door adorned with the device of a lion measuring with a pair of calipers, echoing to Elizabeth's mind Blake's _Ancient of Days_. "Can you curtsey? It is _de rigueur_ here, I'm afraid." Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and then she laughed.

"You know what, Michael? I really like you – you saved my life in the snow and I haven't even thanked you yet." She would normally have stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek, but that didn't seem appropriate with the tall man next to her who – despite having plenty to say – seemed to embody silence. "Frankly, I don't care why I'm here, I'm going to enjoy it. I'm in a beautiful world populated by wonderful creatures and I'm wearing a gorgeous dress – life rarely gets better than this." Michael nodded sagely.

"That is how it usually starts."


	4. Diplomacy in the Chamber of Instruments

**Chapter Four : Diplomacy In The Chamber Of Instruments**

Elizabeth could curtsey – rather well, actually, she reflected as she bobbed down, holding the skirt of her dress up. She could also ride a horse and shoot a bow (which she felt might be useful here); all of these legacies – along with the Latin that allowed her to translate Michael's _whatever is omnipresent is God_ – were of _Daddy's_ insistence on a "good Catholic education" for his daughter. But, she reflected bitterly, Confession once a week and a pony once a year were no substitute for him actually walking the talk. A desire for some sort of reconciliation with her father plucked at her – she thrust it aside with the skill born of long practice as she straightened.

The Chamber of Instruments took up the top third of one of the corner towers of Cair Paravel, a large round room that rose to a vaulted dome high above her head. Shelves filled with books and scrolls – maps, presumably – circled the walls to breast-height. For about ten feet above that was a carved relief in painted marble, a forced-perspective map of Narnia as would be seen from the topmost turret of the Cair. The eastern wall was filled with a short length of land leading to crashing seas and then endless ocean extending out beyond sight. Above that, the dome of the chamber reared, hammered brass and copper mounted on a skeleton of gears and rods, a complex telescope gleaming in the darkness and shining like an icicle in the winter sunlight. Through the opening in the dome, vines could be seen curling, the dark, poisonous green of ivy leaves stark against the metal like verdigris.

There were three men in the Chamber – although to call them "men" would have been a disservice of some sort, for one of them was a huge Centaur – Elizabeth recognized him as the one Peter had called General Oreius – and the other two were mere boys. As the Centaur saw her he placed a gigantic hand gleaming with the coarse down of chestnut hair on his broad chest and bowed from the waist, inclining his maned head towards her. She took in the elegant simplicity of the tooled leather baldric and steel buckles wrapped around the plain brown woolen tunic – _almost bridle and tack,_ she joked to herself – as she dropped another very slight curtsey.

Dressed in luxurious red velvet and gleaming armor as he had been when he rescued her from the wolves, the elder of the two boys glanced up from the map table before him as she entered, then turned to her and dipped his head. _High King Peter._ He was maybe sixteen going on eternal, growing with sinewy slabs of muscle into bones that would support the frame of a warrior – or a division – and with sapphire eyes as clear as the sky and deep as the sea.

"Welcome, Milady Elizabeth, to Cair Paravel." It was the second boy who had spoken, snapping shut a book he had been holding and bowing before her. He was a few years younger than the other and a good head shorter and far slenderer. He swept a gray velvet cloak off the right shoulder of a simple, elegant tunic of the same material and cleared his right arm, placing the book back on a shelf behind him. Eyes the color and temper of a knife blade met hers, flat confidence lurking behind them, as she took in the warmth of a gentle smile. _King Edmund, the diplomat._

As she held out her hand to him, she recognized him – he was the slim boy with the lantern the night before. He took her fingers in his cool hand and raised it to his lips, his breath hovering over her knuckles for a second as he veiled his eyes. "Your . . . humble . . . servant. Your majesty," she managed. He laughed, the heavy, adult laugh of a man who knows his duty is to be polite and finds pleasure in his duty.

"Protocol says those of lower station should be introduced to those of higher station, yet protocol also says gentlemen should be introduced to ladies." He gestured to his brother. "To beauty, hierarchy must always give. Milady Elizabeth, I present High King Peter of Narnia."

"We have met – briefly." She curtseyed again, feeling a handshake would be inappropriate. She had never met royalty before (and partially didn't feel like she was meeting it now) and the last time she had met a man this young she had handed the work-experience boy the photocopying and her coffee mug and told him she liked cappuccino. Blue eyes washed over her like the tide. "Thank you, your majesty, for the timely rescue." A pause, perhaps to allow him to respond. "And for the gracious and most generous hospitality of your castle." Peter smiled, and found his voice.

"It is nothing more than Aslan would have us do, Milady Elizabeth – for it was only at his urging I was in the Lantern Waste at all, looking for something which has turned out to be you." Peter was polite enough even though it was clear his attention wanted to be with her, but he wanted his attention to be with the armies before him. "And, from what Lord Michael has shown he knows of war, I suspect he could have rescued you just as easily." Michael did not disagree, merely shrugged.

"It would have been a long walk here," he murmured. Elizabeth shot him a daggered look and dropped another curtsey.

"Your majesties, I feel I must point out . . . look, we are not ladies." She winced. "I mean, I'm not – not that Michael is, of course." This was not going according to even a non-existent plan. "That is . . . we're not nobles," she managed to finish, "So you don't need to call us 'Lord' and 'Lady'." She switched on a smile and dropped another curtsey. _Idiot, Elizabeth, idiot_.

There was a rustling laugh from above and a verdant voice tendrilled its way into the conversation. "You are a Daughter of Eve, Lady Elizabeth – your kind came into Narnia at the very beginning. You named the creatures, you sowed the fruit of the tree, you ruled over us, protected us and guarded and guided us." Elizabeth's head looked up to the source of the voice, her eyes widening in amazement as an intertwined network of ivy vines lowered a slender woman, naked but for a few strategically placed leaves, through the aperture of the dome and to the stone floor. Her hair was a mass of three-pointed foliage, her body as hard and toned as a swimmer's, muscles rippling under shiny skin the mint and poison greens of the ivy leaves around her. She twisted sculpted emerald lips beneath slitted ruby eyes as she gestured with wicked thorn-pointed nails for the vines to withdraw, adding her final assessment of Elizabeth's kind. "And you brought the Witch to Narnia."

"Hedera . . ." began King Edmund warningly, but the Dryad smiled as winningly as Winter turns to Spring and turned to face the Centaur.

"General Oreius, my scouts have returned. They await your convenience." The Centaur bowed.

"With your majesties' permission . . . ?" Peter gestured and the Centaur withdrew with a clattering of hooves. Edmund transfixed the Dryad with a single glare and then faced Elizabeth and Michael.

"Lady Elizabeth, Lord Michael, may I present Hedera?" Elizabeth curtseyed before she could stop herself, beginning to feel like a democratic drawbridge. "Hedera is Cair Paravel's . . ." He cast around for the word, settling on _intelligence_, but not giving it voice before Hedera smirked;

"Spymaster." Peter's eyes narrowed, but Edmund's smiled widened indulgently. The Dryad slunk her way around the map table, her body and hips describing impossibly sensual S-curves. _All she needs is a pole_, thought Elizabeth to herself as the Dryad draped herself over a chair, spreading like ivy to cover more than humanly possible. "Have their young majesties been asking for your counsel as well with regard to how they should wage their war?" Elizabeth shook her head.

"They have not – I would not presume to offer such advice," she said, "Except perhaps to ask, war in Winter? I thought the Summer was campaign season." Hedera laughed.

"Lady Elizabeth, the creatures of this land made war in the Winter for one hundred years before Adam's flesh and bone came here – we are very good at it indeed." She fixed Elizabeth with a red-eyed stare. "When the destruction of the servants of the Witch is the goal, we do not stop for rain or sleet or sun. We waged a covert war for a century in deeper ice than you can imagine – we will not stop for a little frost." Elizabeth gave a nervous grin.

"I stand corrected, Hedera," she managed, and gave an embarrassed laugh. "You see why I think I shouldn't give advice about war?" Edmund moved between the Dryad and the woman, a living barrier to poison ivy.

"Indeed, milady," he said, "I would not presume to detract from your enjoyment of our hospitality with such things." He sighed. "You have, I am sure, no desire to hear our disagreements."

"Disagreements, King Edmund?" Elizabeth made no pretense of not being shocked – the idea of the Pevensies arguing with each other during Narnia's Golden Age was an alien one to her mind. Certainly, the mere concept of _Golden Age_ – filtered through the lens of childhood fantasy – precluded such things. "Disagreements between who? Not you and King Peter, surely?" Edmund's handsome face twisted.

"I am afraid so." He gestured at a low couch along one wall, the mirror of the one Hedera was festooning, and – as Elizabeth sat down – he swung a chair under his hips. Peter sat on the edge of the map table, his long legs stretched out and his left hand supporting his weight. Michael – alert, relaxed, wide-awake and rested – stood at parade attention by the door, giving the impression he didn't need sleep – just ten-thousand mile-checkups and dust him off occasionally.

"We have a disagreement over where we should concentrate . . . are you sure you wish to hear this?" began Edmund, "Queen Susan never wishes to hear this, and I think we are no closer to a resolution than we ever were." Elizabeth smiled sweetly into his gray eyes.

"I am not Queen Susan," she said softly. Edmund nodded sagely.

"That you are not. Very well. My Royal Brother and I," here he turned to Peter with a wry grin, returned with a polite incline of the head, "have disagreements over where we should concentrate our forces for the liberation of Narnia."

"And that is my point," interrupted Peter sharply, "They are forces for the liberation of _Narnia_. Not the Lone Islands." Edmund stood, spinning to face his brother.

"We have a treaty, Peter! Those islands are part of the Narnian empire, the reasons we are _Imperial_ majesties?" Elizabeth raised her hand in a conciliatory manner.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed. "Please." With an apology, Edmund sat down again. "Liberation of Narnia? I thought the Witch was dead."

"And indeed she is," said Peter, "killed by Aslan within a sword's length of myself – yet there are plenty of her brood and followers left. This is the second Winter since she fell, and although they are growing fewer, they are becoming more organized and more tenacious."

"And what is the reason for that?" asked Hedera, exasperated. "The leadership of the wolves – Maugrim may be dead, but his lieutenants are skilled tacticians! If you would but let me send an assassin to deal with Varden, this war would be all but over!" Peter pointed a mailed fist at Hedera.

"I killed Maugrim in fair battle – I will not slink and skulk and send poison where I cannot send a blade!" he cried, "Varden dies by my sword." Edmund rolled his eyes and remained facing Elizabeth.

"Regardless of that, Lady Elizabeth, assassination will never be an option." He did not look at Hedera as he spoke to her. "You know as well as I, Dryad, we have offered peace to _all _the wolves – they are Talking Beasts of Narnia and we have sworn to be good lord to them." Hedera was incensed.

"Talking Beasts? They don't want to talk, boy, they want to tear your throat out!" Edmund sharpened his eyes.

"You presume much through your long service, Hedera. Remember to whom you speak." There was a splintered moment of tense silence which Peter broke.

"Hedera speaks wisdom with her frank tongue, Edmund," he said reasonably, "Varden's wolves will never accept peace – the only accord comes at the point of my blade." Edmund pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead.

"Listen to yourself, Peter! You can't just slaughter them without an offer of peace!" he cried, "We established an accord with the Dwarfs, and with the Dryads – some of each had served the Witch! And we swore an oath in the name of the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea to be good lord to the Talking Beasts!" Peter snorted derisively.

"Ah, Edmund the Negotiator! Your desire to make peace with the Giants cost us terrain it took me a month to win back! You would always talk rather than fight! Where we you when I killed Maugrim?" There was a weight, a thick heaviness, to the resulting silence.

Very quietly, Edmund spoke. "I was betraying you to the White Witch, dear brother." Elizabeth cast her eyes down in embarrassment and Peter swallowed heavily.

"I . . I am sorry, Edmund, I should not have said that," he croaked, "Forgive me." Edmund's dismissive flick of the wrist showed forgiveness was not only immediate but in fact predated the request.

"No, Peter, you are right to mention it - my own experience colors my attitude." He laced his fingers together and rested his lips on them, looking at a point between Elizabeth and Peter and beyond where they could see. "Perhaps my own redemption makes me see the potential for a future accord and desire too earnestly to make it now." He steepled his fingers and looked at Peter. "Perhaps reality lies somewhere between us." Peter smiled, and looked to the woman sitting between them.

Hedera rolled her eyes and Elizabeth's face assumed an almost-comical expression of shock. She glanced over at Michael who merely returned her gaze coolly and levelly. She laughed – _certainly I am reality_, she mused.

"So," she began, "What exactly is the disagreement over?" Edmund sighed.

"Other than what some days seems like everything," he smiled, "it concerns the Lone Islands – and the Seven Isles and Terebinthia and Galma, to a certain extent." Peter flicked his eyes upwards at the listing of countries that were at best allies of Narnia in the same breath as his territory, but Edmund ignored him. "I maintain we need to mount a crusade against the Witch's forces on the Lone Islands – they have been part of Narnia for time out of mind, and her lieutenants there have ruled them – and still rule them – in her name. There is great cruelty on the Islands, and it may be her magic still holds sway there."

"How do you know this?" asked Elizabeth, "Have you sent spies?" Hedera laughed.

"Oh, yes, Daughter of Eve – I have sent my agents. And they have come back bearing reports of situations as bad as any that existed under the Witch; worse, perhaps, for _humans_ are the ones carrying the whips." Elizabeth stared at Edmund, aghast.

"Humans? Working for the Witch?" Edmund nodded and was about to speak when Hedera interrupted again.

"You think your species incapable of it, Daughter of Eve? You have ever been allies of the Witch." Edmund turned to her with rage on his face, a rage he mastered down to smoldering calm.

"Hedera, that will be all. I expect the report on the Lantern Waste by sundown." The Dryad's eyes narrowed like roses closing with the coming of thorny night and – without another word and with a rustle of leaves – she withdrew as she had entered. Edmund let out his breath in a deep sigh. "I am sorry, milady. Hedera's people suffered long under the Witch, and she remembers earlier days of Narnia – and perhaps some of the earliest betrayals." He smiled. "She is merrier in the Summer." Elizabeth laughed gently as Edmund continued. "When the Witch took over Narnia, she persecuted the native humans here. Some escaped, fleeing to Telmar or Archenland, or to the Islands – but most were slain; she did not even wish to risk making them statues in her castle. She sent envoys to the Lone Islands – which were part of the Narnian empire even then – and with magic and bribes and threats and promises of power, she found humans willing to accept her will. The price was to acknowledge her as the Queen of Narnia and to never seek to sail to the mainland." Edmund lowered his eyes. "She could be very persuasive."

Elizabeth put her hand on his arm before she could stop herself, and then drew it back quickly. "And the Lone Islands were ruled by humans in the Witch's name?" she asked, "Persecuting the natives?" Edmund nodded.

"Yes," said Peter, "And still are." He addressed Edmund, "But that does not mean we should neglect Narnia to help them. They have given us no help – where is the tribute? It has been two years since the Witch died, and we have seen nary a Minim from the Islanders!" Edmund turned to him.

"And you hold that against them? The Black Dwarfs were the Witch's treasurers, and they still hide in the mountains and the caves. They could be receiving the tribute in the Witch's name – there is nothing to suggest the Islanders even know the Witch is dead! That is the very reason why we should mount a crusade and free the Islands – aid will come from them! They will be our allies rather than neutral at best and our enemies at worst!"

Peter shook his head. "We do not have the resources to launch such as assault, nor the ships." He paused, "And Narnia has suffered more under the Witch. It was to Narnia that Aslan came." Edmund narrowed his eyes and stood.

"And we should go to the Islands," he said softly with steel in his tone. Peter shook his head.

"The available forces are under my command – I will not send the armies, Edmund." His brother glanced sharply at him, as if Peter had insulted the younger man.

"You know very well that I would not depart unless you gave permission, _High King_," he said pointedly, "but your assessment of our armies is not entirely accurate." He smiled and moved to the map table, gesturing at the western portion of Narnia. "I am the Duke of the Lantern Waste and Count of the Western March," he said flatly, "The armies there fall under my command. With your permission, I shall begin withdrawing them on the morrow and use the treasury of the Silver Citadel to hire Galmian ships. I can be in the Islands by the middle of Frostmelt." He widened his smile and then switched it off. Peter gaped.

"The Lantern Waste will fall!"

"The Lantern _Waste_ is unpopulated."

"You will be Duke of nothing! You will squander the wealth we took from the Witch!"

"Do you think I care for titles and treasure when I can bring the triumph of Aslan?" There was a moment of flat, dead, silence. "I am right, brother." Peter blinked, shook his head in wonder and then – very slowly – nodded.

"Very well - you are right. What are we if we do not act as Aslan when he is not here? My permission is granted." Peter paused for a second. "Do not leave the Waste completely undefended, there is no need; I will send forces with you." He sighed. "This will hurt us, Edmund." The younger man's smile was one of the most beautiful things Elizabeth had seen in a long while.

"Do you think it didn't hurt Aslan to die?" he asked.


	5. Conversation with the Boy King

**Chapter Five : Conversation with the Boy-King**

"I am sorry I have left you alone for most of the day," said Edmund, as he nodded for the Faun who pushed in his chair to withdraw. Elizabeth, still trying to get used to the fact both a mere _boy_ and a _king_ had pushed _her_ chair in under her hips, smiled across the carved table at him.

"It's alright, your majesty . . ."

"Edmund, please." She smiled.

"Then no 'milady', Edmund, deal?" He nodded, and she continued. "It's alright – the High King spent some time with me, he showed me around the armory" She pursed her lips and nodded judiciously. "And the rose garden."

Edmund looked puzzled. "It's Winter," he said distractedly. "In fact, Merry Christmas – I don't think anyone has wished you it yet." He paused and rubbed his chin with his hand. "It is becoming a family tradition," he mused, "the four of us are never together for Christmas. Third in a row, now." He sighed, and then looked back at her. "Regardless," he said finally, "it's Winter – no flowers blooming unless he's issued very specific orders to the Dryads."

"I know." She left it unsaid as to whether or not she _had_ seen roses, or just their garden. She paused. "Do you think he was trying to impress me?" Edmund shrugged as the Fauns brought a series of platters laden with pies and pasties and cold meats and bread and cheeses and fruit spilling like multicolored waterfalls from over the edge. He poured her some wine.

"It is certainly possible." He smiled at the Fauns, who bowed and left the two of them alone on the parapet in the gathering darkness, the moon and stars beginning to appear, the burning warmth of the lanterns illuminating the marble mosaic beneath their feet. "Did it work?"

She laughed. "Yes, but not in the way he hoped, I think – he likes me, doesn't he?" The experience was not unusual for her – work-experience boys developed crushes on her all the time – but the recollection of her _own_ crush on the valiant Peter from her childhood stories, make-believe fantasies filtered through fever-dreams, made it strange.

Edmund raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Likes you? Most assuredly – I _like_ you." Elizabeth looked up, carefully measuring his response to her beneath the affected ignorance. He felt her scrutiny and cast his eyes down, not giving her the opportunity. "My brother is a good man, a great king and a matchless warrior," he muttered, making an excuse for his brother and hoping it would cover him too.

"Oh, I can see that," said Elizabeth softly. It was not fair to play games with boys on the very cusp of manhood; she changed the subject. "Is he really as good as his victories suggest?" Edmund nodded.

"Oh, yes," he said, gushing. "Natural-born killer, my brother. Peerless tactician. If it were not for my mercy checking him, we'd have pacified Narnia by now." He noticed neither of them were eating. "Please, don't stand on ceremony," he said and – suiting the action to the word – drew some bread and cheese onto his plate. As Elizabeth crossed herself and veiled her eyes for a second, he reversed his knife and placed its point on the tabletop for a moment. And then he reached for his cup and took a testing sip.

"What was that?" asked Elizabeth, popping a grape into her mouth.

"What was yours?" smiled Edmund.

"Cross of Christ," she blushed.

"Ah." He nodded, understanding. "Knife of Aslan."

"Ah." A longish pause. "And when the High King left me to my own devices, I managed to amuse myself. I played some chess with the ladies-in-waiting and then . . ." Edmund interrupted her.

"That's all you say, 'Ah'? We share a blessing before our meal that makes reference to the death of a Savior, and you don't comment on it." She toyed with her food for a second and then pushed her plate away, leaning back in her chair and picking up her goblet of wine.

"It's too big for me, Edmund," she said, "It's simply too large and complex to grasp. I mean, I know what happened to Aslan at the Stone Table, and I . . ." Edmund interrupted her.

"Which is a question I would want to ask you," he said. "Both you and Michael have a knowledge of Narnia which is greater than I would expect for someone who has just arrived here." He spread his hands, "You see my confusion?" She smiled, nervously running her cup around the inside of her palms.

"Edmund," she began carefully, "How do you know Narnia is real?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Define 'real'," was his swift answer, "I've often considered Plato's analogy of the cave with reference to Narnia." He smiled at her reaction. "I was the younger son, Elizabeth," he explained, "My father was richer by then, I got sent to a more expensive school than Peter - although I do think he got the better establishment." He leaned back and marshaled his thoughts. "In terms of experiential knowledge, Narnia is real - it is real to me, and to you. We sense it and it seems real - don't you agree?" She nodded.

"Yes, but . . ."

"At which point you are challenging the validity of our experience, or rather sensory awareness, as reality," he said smoothly, "are you not? You are questioning whether or not Narnia is an illusion of sorts, something we experience, but which has no substance." He raised his eyebrows in questioning appeal.

She swilled wine around in her mouth judiciously. "Yes," she said at length. Edmund nodded decisively, a downward strike of the head like a man testing a rope.

"Very well. I would argue the same could be said for the real world - England and the rest. My sensory awareness here is substantially the same as I had back home. Given that, I would have to answer your question not with an actual reason, because that would imply I could tell you how I know _anywhere_ is real, but rather with the somewhat unsatisfactory, 'I can't'." He paused and looked at her, smiling into her astonished face. "Why did you ask that question?" he asked her as he poured himself another glass of wine and topped hers up. She nibbled nervously at an apple as she considered how best to answer.

"It seemed to best way to lead into an answer to yours," she said slowly. She paused, and tried a different tack. "You commented on the fact I crossed myself - you must recognize the parallels between Aslan and Christ." Edmund grinned like a shark.

"Ah, now we come to it!" His glass was half-empty by now, hers was still full. "Of course I do - savior coming to a fallen world in the guise of the native inhabitants; a Talking-Animal for Narnia, a human for Earth - dying as an innocent for the Sins of others?" He paused, lost inside himself for a moment. "Yes," he continued softly, "I see the parallels." He looked up at her, smiling gently at her. "But I think I know more about it than you do."

"Of course you do," she began, "You've seen it first-hand . . ." but he interrupted her.

"No, I don't mean that." He stopped dead. Night had fallen firmly by now, the moon was rising – just after full – above them. Within the warmth of the lanterns, he looked over at her and gauged how much he should tell her. He swallowed the last of his drink and poured himself another with careful precision.

"Hadn't you better go easy on the wine?" she asked, the frustrated mother-instinct in her looking at this slim boy and wondering how much alcohol he could take.

"It settles my stomach," he answered shortly. He paused and looked at a point above her head, maybe a tree or the moon or perhaps months previously. "The night I was rescued from the Witch, I was brought to the Stone Table after dark. I spent the night talking with Aslan." Another pause. "Exactly what he said to me isn't important - and I doubt anyone other than me would understand _exactly_ what he said to me - but I came out of that conversation knowing both who I was and who he is." He locked eyes with her. She paused, waiting for an answer.

"And, that is?" she asked coaxingly. Edmund looked at her as if she were mad.

"Why, Christ, of course," he said, perplexed, "You were the one who mentioned His name first, I can't imagine you didn't work it out for yourself." He sighed. "Aslan made who he was clear without being explicit, along with a lot of other things."

"Did he tell Peter?" she asked. "I mean, he is the eldest . . ."

He wasn't offended. "Which means he told him something else," he explained. "What it was, I don't know – no-one is told anyone's story but their own." He looked at her over the rim of his glass, the alcohol he had consumed evidenced by the lack of it in the jug and nothing else. "You are having a hard time accepting this, aren't you?"

She stood and paced for a few seconds, eventually settling on a comfortable cushioned seat set into the balcony parapet. "I don't accept . . . I didn't, whatever – I'm not a Christian, Edmund. I don't believe in Him." Edmund didn't seem to think this was a problem.

"Very well, how do you explain the fact you're here?" he asked, standing. "Aslan brought my family into Narnia – who brought you and Michael? The logical conclusion is Aslan – if you choose to believe me when I say his name, and I say he is Christ." He paused again, twisting his face as he pitied her her logical quandary. "It comes down to whether or not you think I am telling the truth or not." He looked at her and shrugged.

She smiled up at him, patting the seat beside her, feeling a sudden and unaccustomed rush of motherly-compassion for this overly-intelligent young man. "I'd never call you a liar, Edmund." He sat beside her.

"Well, that is kind – but I have been, and I am used to having to prove I am telling the truth. You are in Narnia – a world which contains, among other things, Centaurs and Minotaurs and Fauns. These are the names given to them here – they are not names given to them by me or Peter or Susan or Lucy. All the Talking Beasts here speak English. The tree-spirits are called Dryads." He paused, casting his eyes down, "Even the Witch knew what Turkish Delight was." He sighed, seeing if she caught his meaning. She didn't seem to, so he plowed on. "Narnia is a world which is based on human concepts – it takes various mythological elements and uses them in a different way. Within Narnia, this is considered normal – no-one here has read the _Iliad_ – except myself and Peter – yet we have a world which is based in part on Greek myth. The very issue of time; when Lucy first went into the Wardrobe, and when I went in and met the Witch – no time passed at all in the real world." He shrugged expansively. "That suggests a created world, an almost fictional world. Narnia sometimes seems to me like someone made it for my benefit, to teach me a few important things." A dead silence. "Aslan made Narnia, Aslan taught me to be a decent human being and not a traitor, Aslan died for Narnia and everything within it – but, most importantly as far as I am concerned, he died for me. No-one is ever told any story but their own, but I sometimes wonder if this story is simply for the benefit of the four of us."

Elizabeth started. "You think you're a character in a story?" she gasped.

"Aren't we all?" asked Edmund rhetorically. "I mean, not in the way Sherlock Holmes or Oliver Twist are, but aren't we all just part of the single great story God is telling with Christ's life as the central narrative?"

Elizabeth did not sound convinced. "I suppose," she said slowly, "if you insist . . ."

Edmund shrugged. "Well, even setting that aside," he conceded. "It is, I will admit, a little bit glib as answers go. But I think we are all – in a very real way – characters in stories told to other people; the difference between theater and reality is we know the play is fiction – there is little substantive difference. And Narnia is a story told by Aslan to teach me truths – perhaps calling it a parable would be a better description." He paused and seemed to consider. "I am not sure if it is more egotistical to believe it is _just_ for my benefit, or to believe I'm also a character in other people's stories."

Elizabeth swallowed heavily, filled her mouth with wine and did it again. "You are," she said softly. "A character in other people's stories, I mean – you are a character in mine."

He laughed. "Well, yes, of course," he said. "That's rather the point – what I mean is; it just seems arrogant to think my presence might be teaching others something – even if that is the inevitable conclusion."

She shook her head. "No," she said nervously, "that's not what I mean. I come from a place where the Narnia stories – I mean, your life and experiences in Narnia – are fictional stories, published books." Edmund looked at her quizzically. "You can go into a bookshop and buy them – this, right now, this is . . . I guess it's part of the first book." She felt she had to say something into the face of his silence. "There are quite a few. I haven't read them all." He still didn't say something. "And what I did read I don't remember very well. Sorry."

Edmund seemed to take it very well – much better than she would have expected him to. Of course, she wasn't telling a simulacrum he was a fictional character – she was telling a living, breathing person someone had written stories about him. The emotion that flowed over his face was embarrassment – she likely knew intimate details of his life. Past _and_ future. "A series of books?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Don't go there," she insisted. "I said I don't remember well and I'm savvy enough to know that sort of thing never ends well."

He nodded, understanding. "No, no, quite right. But . . . you're not part of the stories?" She shook her head. "And so this is . . . new? A changing of the narrative?"

"A period the books really don't cover," she clarified. "The Golden Age of Narnia." She was surprised just how much she _could_ remember.

"I see," he said heavily. "So, this is something that was just never written about? Not exciting enough?"

"Too metafictional," she said with a sour grin. "_This_ conversation especially."

He laughed. "So perhaps that's it," he said. "Maybe we _are_ all just characters in someone else's story."

She nodded, a headache that had nothing to do with the wine starting. "That had occurred to me," she admitted. "I mean, where does this bottom out? Narnia may be a story for you, you are a story for me – am I a story for someone? Is someone reading this? Are _all_ fictional?" she asked. "I'm not sure I like that idea." He shrugged.

"I'm not sure I like a lot of things – in fact, I'm sure I don't like the fact I'm going to have to go to war in a month's time. War is ugly and it hurts. But it is necessary, and that's the truth. This could be the same thing." He stopped and seemed to consider. "There is one question we have not asked."

"Which is?"

"If I am a parable you are experiencing, what is Aslan trying to teach you? And if _you_ are a parable being read by someone else, what is he trying to teach them?" Elizabeth's eyebrows went scrambling up in surprise.

"That he's real?" she fumbled. "I don't know – best answer I can come up with." Edmund grinned.

"Did you just become a Christian?" he smirked. She narrowed her eyes, feeling unfairly but unexpectedly pleasantly tricked, and his smirk widened. "Oh, I see – well, I think we'd better leave this conversation then, don't you?" He stood and filled their glasses for the last time, putting the empty jug back on the table. "Since you seem to be interested in such things, let me tell you of our plans for the war. Your friend Michael, my brother and I have spent the afternoon drawing up a schedule of the armies which can be spared from the defense of Narnia, and yet still leave Peter with a force to prosecute his wars come the Spring. We are all but abandoning the Lantern Waste – I have sent messengers there ahead, but I shall go to supervise the muster of the armies. I shall leave the Centaurs to defend the land, for they make poor sailors." Elizabeth laughed.

"Should I make a seahorse joke?"

"The Centaurs would not be amused," grinned Edmund. "I will leave my Marshal in command of the Lantern Waste, for a competent paw is needed there with so few troops and such a large area – it requires someone who knows what he is doing. This leaves me requiring a commander for the crusade; your friend Michael is well-versed in war and has agreed to fulfill that office."

"Oh!" said Elizabeth before she could stop herself. "I mean to say, that is . . ." Narnia was all very well; there was a beauty here she remembered from her childhood. But these wars did not look like being a few pages in a book in which no-one died – they looked like being bloody, and hard, and not the clean victory she had come to expect. And – if she had to be part of them – she wanted to be part of them with Michael by her side. She stood and leaned on the parapet. Edmund seemed to not hear her, and plowed on.

"This war is my brother's, and he will win it. It is cut and dried – there are those in Narnia who have accepted Aslan, and those who will not. Despite my offers of peace, there will be no take-up of them in great numbers. As I well know, wolves are implacable and tenacious foes and Varden's pack will fight to the death." He gazed out into the night, taking a deep draught from his glass. "Those who oppose my brother and lie within Narnia will die by his blade – it is a matter of time and nothing more.

"But the Lone Islands . . . they are a different kettle of fish." He span back to her, his eyes shining and face aglow. She smiled; here was a man she would follow to Hell and who she suspected was capable of leading people back from it. "There are people there who have never heard of Aslan, never known anything except the rule of the Witch and never even dreamed of legends to compare that against." He filled his glass for the umpteenth time that evening. "These are people who have known nothing but darkness – and we can bring them light, Elizabeth."

She turned to him with wonder written on her face. "We?" she asked, not daring to hope. He smiled at her, a strange expression on his face.

"I hardly think it co-incidence," he remarked softly, "that Queen Swanwhite's war-armor is as well-preserved as the Four Thrones when nothing else from her reign was." Elizabeth had seen the suit in the armory – until Peter had told her what it was, the armor of the last Frankish Queen of Narnia, she had assumed it was Jadis'. It was silver; tall, elegant, beautiful and strong beyond reckoning, and she blushed as Edmund continued. "It looks to be about your size, and I'd wager all the amber in the Wild it will fit you like a glove. Aslan does not call people here lightly, and there are no such things as accidents. I suspect Swanwhite's blade still has blood to draw." She blinked once or twice, trying to process her joy and the impact of expectation, her eyes brimming with tears. "What? You think I would let you languish here? It's clear where you want to be – and where you should be. Aslan did not send you here to assist in a war that will be won without your help." He paused and came to a decision. "We set out for the Lantern Waste in the morning." Elizabeth leaned harder on the parapet, staring out into the gleaming Narnian night.

"I don't know if I was sent here, or called here, or wished myself here," she murmured. "I don't even know why I'm here – the nearest I can come to it is 'to find out why I am here', and I was told that!" Edmund had come up beside her, his eyes level with hers – a tall boy a third her age with experience that made hers seem like a candle beside a bonfire. She was shivering and he draped his cloak about her shoulders, turning up the collar of his tunic as defense against the cold. He sipped from his wineglass and gestured westwards.

"There, Elizabeth, lies Narnia," he sighed, "the kingdom of Talking Trees and Beasts and Dwarfs and Fauns and Centaurs and magic my family rules." He narrowed his eyes. "And tomorrow I gather my armies and my treasures and after that you and I take the rule of my brother and the name of Aslan to the islands near the rising sun." He smiled. "I am young, I have years ahead of me and the greatest army of the age behind me, the lord of a fell people. Life doesn't get any better than this." Elizabeth turned to him with a question on her lips.

"Edmund," she asked, "are you supposed to enjoy this quite so much?" His grin widened.

"If there is one thing being King of Narnia has taught me, even if I have learned naught else," said Edmund, draining his glass with the aplomb born of long practice, "it is that just because something must be done does not mean it cannot be fun." He tossed the glass carelessly to the table and took her by the hand. "Come on, let's get you in armor."


	6. Of Armor

**Chapter Six : Of Armor**

Dawn came bright and clear over the sea, but it did not find either Elizabeth or Edmund sleeping. They had woken hours earlier and breakfasted – in armor and traveling cloaks – on the quayside as their ship was readied. Now, as the sunlight poured like water over the sea and rolled upriver, Elizabeth swallowed the last of her spiced wine – she was beginning to get used to this concept of wine with _every_ meal although her liver and head weren't – and nodded her thanks at the lady-in-waiting who had served her. She stood and walked over to where Edmund was watching the riverboat being readied. "When do we embark?" she asked. Edmund glanced at the sun and the tide.

"Not long if I am any judge," he said. "An hour, maybe a little less." He turned to her and looked her over. "I was right – it could have been made for you."

Being measured for the armor had awed her with the terrible weight of prophecy – the Cair's armorers had begun uncertainly, convinced there would be too much work in adjusting a suit of armor to accomplish in a single night. And then, as it became increasingly clear there was not a single measurement on Elizabeth's body that did not perfectly mirror Swanwhite's, they began to laugh nervously, eventually falling to stunned silence. They muttered their report to Edmund and departed, casting nervous glances at Elizabeth as they left. Wrapped tightly in the feeling she was out of her depth, she excused herself from the King's presence and went to bed. She was woken in the morning by the Dryads-in-waiting, accompanied by three muscular Fauns carrying her armor.

Any illusions she might have labored under about armor had been dispelled in the thirty minutes it had taken the Fauns to dress her in it, and the fact she could still move in it. The first layer was the arming doublet and hose – dark-blue quilted silk padded against the Winter chill and with thicker padding and navy-blue leather on her shoulders, hips and inner thighs, laced tight around her with rawhide points and silver buckles. Even though this was going to be covered with the outer layers of armor the leather was gorgeously tooled and the silk embroidered with figures of prancing horses, leaping dragons and rearing lions.

Belted around her waist, resting on the padding over the hips, was an ankle-length skirt of heavily-pipeclayed leather overlain with silver-white chainmail, split front and back. Her torso and arms were protected by a leather and mail shirt, resting on her bolstered shoulders and cinched at her waist. The chief Faun explained the two-part construction – rather than a full-length hauberk – was to take advantage of the wider hips and narrower waist of women. He had smiled as he said this, and she had smiled back icily – _I don't want a symbol of male-virility pointing out women can't wear men's armor, thanks._

The rest of the armor was plate – beaten and folded metal lacquered and inlaid with polished silver and white enamel and mother of pearl. The corselet and tassets were strapped on first, the body armor pinching in at the waist and flaring at the hips, exaggerating her already impressive figure.

The armor had no helmet – the monarch of Narnia, the Faun explained, needed to be _seen_, trusting to the protection of Aslan. She had begun to remonstrate she was no Queen, but the royal armor fitting her like a second-skin silenced that objection. She held her tongue and held out her arms for the vambraces and gauntlets to be strapped on.

The gauntlets were asymmetrical, as were the lamed pauldrons – both gloves were articulated steel over leather, but the left was heavier than the right, which bore thickened leather on the inside of the first two fingers. "Archery gloves," the Faun had explained, fitting the shoulder-guards. In deference to the lack of helmet, the pauldrons flared upwards into haute-piece flanges by the side of each cheek, protecting against decapitating slashes, but with the left one cut away to allow the wearer to turn her head when loosing an arrow.

The boots were over-the-knee white leather, faced with gleaming greaves and with the locked ankle and blocked heel of a cavalry shoe. Finally, the Faun had buckled a belt made of wrought silver in the form of a line of leaping lions around her waist, a long, thin, straight sword in a pearl-encrusted scabbard hanging from it, and clipped a cloak of white fur to her shoulders. Stepping back, he had admired his handiwork.

Elizabeth had simply stood there, immobile as a statue in the Witch's courtyard, feeling the pounds of leather and steel surround her like guilt. "How am I supposed to move in all this?" she moaned. "If I fall over I'll never get up!" The Faun had laughed merrily.

"Try walking to the door."

And, wonder of wonders, she _could_. True, the armor was heavy and cumbersome – but no more than a thick full-length leather coat. Provided she walked _with_ it rather than _against_ it, she could walk without a problem, even bend and touch her toes and jump to touch the lantern hanging above. The heavy skirt flared as she spun and she found she could move her arms anywhere she might actually _need_ to move them to.

"Not as bad as you thought?" the Faun had smiled. She had laughed herself and shaken her head, drawing the sword. She had sliced through a rope holding a tapestry with her first stroke and tried – unsuccessfully – to put it quickly back. Had it not been for the armor on her fingers, it was certain she would have cut herself as she held the mouth of the scabbard, trying to align it and the blade. The Faun had giggled and then made his face very solemn. "Perhaps you could ask King Edmund to give you some pointers, milady?"

And now she stood on the quayside with the very same King Edmund, stealing a glance at her reflection in the rippling water. The fact the armor widened her hips and shoulders while adding little to her waist offset its bulk in her eyes; it gave her the figure she desired. She had imagined wearing armor would turn her into a walking tank – a bundle of metal with her face peering out from the top, red and sweaty and clanking like clockwork. But this, this was glorious.

Edmund, of course, was in armor – the first time she had seen him in it – and he was simply dressed in comparison to her. He wore a thin circlet of gold on his head, and his surcoat was rich red with a golden lion, but – other than that – his garb was plain and functional; gleaming mail and shining plate. He wore a light sword – lighter than the one his brother had wielded, with carved amber on the hilt and scabbard – and had a dagger tucked into his boot. He was, quite simply, a study in simplicity itself.

As the two of them waited for the boat to be readied, there was a clatter from the castle behind them and Oreius, Peter and Michael rattled down the stairs, armor jangling and metal shoes striking sparks from the stone floor. Edmund and Elizabeth turned, the King bowing and she curtseying (which she discovered was _far_ harder in armor – she turned it into a rather stiff bow in time to avoid falling over). She noticed the Centaur was in full armor – mail and leather and plate that seemed to double his torso's already prodigious size and a positive tent of thick chain encasing his chestnut body – and Peter and Michael were wearing suits twice as heavy as hers and Edmund's.

He knew what it meant. "War, brother?" he asked Peter. The High King bowed to Elizabeth and nodded.

"The northern border, the Giants," he said shortly, "Oreius will remain at the Cair to defend it". He glanced over at the tall man in the gunmetal armor and black leather – duller by far than the gleaming silver and gold and red and white lacquer of their armor, but altogether more warlike, more serious; distilled down to component parts and reassembled into tempered intention. "I need Michael with me, Edmund," Peter said almost apologetically, "I have no other commanders."

"Coriadine?" asked Edmund without much hope.

"Dead defending the Shribble," Peter said shortly. Edmund closed his eyes in grief for a second. "This can be over in a month or less," said Peter without a great deal of conviction which caused Edmund to raise an eyebrow. "Michael will still go with you to the Lone Islands." Edmund smiled at his brother. "Never let it be said the High King of Narnia went back on his word, Ed," grinned Peter. Edmund bit his lip and closed his eyes to stop the leaking tears.

"Take care of yourself," he said shortly, reaching out and pulling his brother into a clanking embrace, their mailed fists thumping each other on the back. Oreius stood silently, his rear hooves twitching. Michael looked over at Elizabeth, gauging her response.

"Take care of the King," were her words. "I expect you back for the Lone Island crusade." She smiled at him as he inclined his head indulgently, taking in the fact she seemed to have grown into the armor rather than been dressed in it, seeing the cues that told him she was walking to places she did not know but he did.

"Of course," he said, drawing a plain steel sword to salute her with. "Now we have spent so long introducing my character it would be idiotic if I were not there for the climax of the story." She wrinkled her nose at him and stuck out her tongue. "I think it's necessary for the tale for you to be without me for a while." He paused. "Take care of King Edmund" he added, almost as an afterthought, and raised the reversed quillons and hilt of his sword to his eyes – the salute of the crusaders.

She fixed him with a level stare and drew her own blade, reversing it and stabbing the ground with a decisive strike. A different man might have smiled, but he simply turned away and moved towards the stables. Peter disengaged from his brother and bent his head to her. "Milady, once again I must protest – the Lantern Waste is dangerous. Despite the choice Swanwhite herself made, I must remind you a woman taking up armor is . . ." He stopped and gulped as the two decades she had on him skewered him with a single stare. "Battles are ugly when women fight," he finished somewhat lamely.

"I am certain battles are never beautiful, your majesty," she said flatly. Something about the very femininity of the armor – which had appealed to her so much not so long ago – rankled with her now. She was sure his was the stronger armor, the surer protection. His was built for the press of battle, hers for looking good and archery. She stopped herself – _it was my father that wanted me to be a boy_, she reminded herself, _and the Church that told me they were better. I won't believe that myself . . . and I won't be patronized by a boy young enough to be my child; young enough provided I'd stayed home barefoot and pregnant that is._

"Ah, the boat's ready," said Edmund diplomatically, breaking in on her angry reverie. It wasn't, but no Marshwiggle would gainsay one of the Four Monarchs. He nodded at Peter. "Go with Aslan, brother – good luck against the Giants." Peter bowed and withdrew.

"Come, Elizabeth," he said, as the gangplank was hastily dropped to the quay, "We have a long way to go."


	7. From the Cair to Beruna

**Chapter Seven : From the Cair to Beruna**

Elizabeth lowered herself into the exquisitely padded chair set into the curved stern of the riverboat, rested her head on the poop-deck rails and gazed up at the linen sail above her, following the gold thread that swooped and curved in and out of the folds in the cloth. Suddenly, the ship moved from the lee of the castle and – with a shake – the sail filled out, stiffening and bulging taut in the breeze, ropes creaking as they took up the slack. The figure of a lion leaped from the canvas.

Edmund clattered up the ladder from the main deck, landing with an easy flex of his knees on the swaying poop. "We're underway," he said unnecessarily. "The Captain says we should make Beruna by nightfall or earlier; the snow-melt has been less over the last few days so the river is not flowing as fast. And the wind is good." He smiled and leaned against the railing opposite her.

"What's Beruna?" she asked.

"The Fords of Beruna," he answered. "They mark the lowest point where the Great River can be forded; the river bed widens and shallows greatly there, but it soon deepens off. Downriver from the Fords the river – as you can see – flows pretty slowly, and it's deep enough for heavy traffic." He paused. "The Fords are also where we fought the Battle of Beruna against the Witch a year and a half ago; it was the site of the encampment we made the night before. Peter has kept it as a staging point; our army will begin gathering there before it moves to the Cair and takes ship to the Lone Islands."

She nodded, understanding, and turned and looked at the scenery slipping smoothly past; the wooded banks of the great Narnian river, the trees hatted with snow in lieu of leaves, blazing like moonrise in the light from the sun – now climbing inexorably into the sky behind her. Here and there, little clutches of ice at the river's edge began to melt in the day's warmth, breaking off and drifting downriver, shrinking as they did so. She smiled as a family of water rats splashed and played at the water's edge – sleek and smooth, their fur shining with the gloss of pelt. As the ship pushed past the wake forced the river up the banks, submerging the smallest and leaving him sneezing water out of his nose. Elizabeth tried unsuccessfully not to laugh.

The two larger rats heard and turned towards the boat, lifting their offspring and holding them up to see. Edmund blushed as they exclaimed, "Look! There is brave King Edmund who destroyed the Witch's wand! And see . . ." Their voices trailed off. "It can't be . . ." they murmured.

Elizabeth's face became grave. "Do I look like her?" she asked seriously.

Edmund shrugged. "I never saw her," he said truthfully, "but . . ." He sighed. "If I am any judge, yes – the spitting image of the statues and surviving paintings. A few of the older Narnians – the ones who were alive before the Witch came, Hedera especially – have commented on it."

Elizabeth ignored the Dryad's name. "Was she a good queen?" she asked softly.

He answered with a question. "Was Elizabeth Tudor?"

She thought she understood. "It depends on who you ask, is that it?" He shook his head.

"No, not at all – you will get pretty much the same answer from everyone," he explained. "They just can't make up their minds themselves. She was the last queen before the Witch came, and she fought her – and lost. She made difficult choices, she sacrificed a great deal – of herself and of Narnia." He smiled. "It was she who spoke the prophecy of the Four Thrones, just before the Witch killed her on the Stone Table."

Something nagged at Elizabeth. "But the Stone Table is for . . ."

"Yes," said Edmund with an air of finality, and there was silence between them for long minutes.

A sudden gust of wind filled the sail, popping it out and stretching the royal insignia so the purple and gold caught then sun. She tilted her head up at the brazen sail. "Isn't that rather obvious?" she asked. "Short of shouting 'King Edmund is here!', I'm not sure I could think of a way to make your presence plainer." Edmund's infectious grin appeared. "I mean, we've taken no bodyguards – we are planning to pick some up at Beruna?" Edmund shook his head and her eyes widened. "We're going to walk alone back to the Lantern Waste to supervise the movement of the armies? The place where I was nearly killed by wolves?" Edmund shook his head.

"Oh, no-no-no," he reassured her, "Nothing like that at all." She looked relieved. "We're going to _ride_ to _Beaversdam_ and then to the Silver Citadel – the Lantern Waste will empty itself."

"But, alone?" she asked. He nodded. "Is that sensible?" He gave a casual shrug.

"It will serve its purpose – my blade is not just ornament, how about yours?"

She colored. "I sliced through a tapestry this morning," she said sheepishly.

Edmund smirked. "That was probably priceless," he remarked dryly, drawing his blade and vaulting over the rail to land with a clatter of armor on the shifting deck. "Come on, I'll try a pass or two." She got unsteadily to her feet and practically lurched to the ladder.

"Edmund! I can't even stand still on the boat properly!" Edmund put his hands on his hips.

"First lesson – never stand still in a sword fight. Now, get down here, milady."

oOo

The encampment at Beruna was a pageant of faded glories; conical tents and vast pavilions executed in brilliant, vibrant silks – now frayed and graying with the rain and sun of two sets of campaign-Summer and campaign-Winter. Narnia's war allowed no respite and – despite the fact the soldiery Elizabeth and Edmund moved through were rested and with morale that soared higher than the eagles and Gryphons above – the encampment itself was worn and tired.

Elizabeth stood next to the guy rope of a great tent, once a plaited silk line in red and green and now repaired and spliced so many times it was all but unrecognizable, as Edmund stood with a slender Centauress – _Centaurette?_ – with the face and torso of a gorgeous teenager and the piebald body of a thoroughbred filly, her hooves as skittish as a Kelpie but her face and eyes fixed on Edmund's. She was naked but for a rough twist of brown wool around her chest and shoulders – perhaps a concession to her human overlords and nothing else – and, as the snow fell around and on her, her cute little mobile ears twisted and flicked. Edmund did not seem to feel the cold as he read a scroll she had handed to him, her flanks and abdomen glistening with a sheen of sweat. Elizabeth looked around and saw a ludicrously short, stocky person with soft, bushy red hair and beard like a fox, dressed in so much armor he seemed to be wider than he was tall.

"Excuse me," she asked the Dwarf – _what else could he be?_ – as he walked past. He looked up at her and bowed deeply. "Could we get a blanket or something for the Centaure . . . her? She looks very cold." The Dwarf nodded and fairly ran off - quite literally _through_ the thick snow as easily as Elizabeth could have run through tall grass – and returned what seemed like seconds later with a heavy woolen blanket. Elizabeth took the cloth and reached up to the Centaurette – _Centauress?_ – to drape it around her shoulders. She _whickered_.

"A rub-down would be nicer," she neighed, turning to face Elizabeth. She smiled, realizing perhaps she might have offended the Centauress by treating her as too human. She bunched the blanket slightly and began to methodically rub-down her flanks. _Offering her a sugar-lump would be a bit much, though_, she mused, as she moved to rubbing the girl's slim arms and torso, feeling like a combination of ostler and social-worker dealing with a neglected waif.

Edmund rolled the scroll together. "Very good. Get some wine and some food – when can you take my response to Marshal Nicodemus?" She nuzzled her chest and shoulders into the rough wool, making little contented horse noises in her throat.

"If you've got some lump-sugar, your Majesty, I could be persuaded to set off within the hour." Her flanks were quivering with suppressed energy, lactic acid and adrenaline – Elizabeth rubbed them firmly so she wouldn't get cramp. Edmund laughed and reached into his pocket.

"Here." She bent her head and, with incredibly mobile, full, sensual lips wiffled the lumps of sugar off his flat palm. She grinned at him. "Bad for your teeth," he chided, turning away from her. "Equerry?" he shouted, casting his eyes around him. Elizabeth spun her head to him in shock.

"Oh, not for me – he's looking for a horse for himself tomorrow," said the Centaur-girl – _better_ – stretching out her forelimbs with the knees locked, shoving her hindquarters backwards and leaning forward to place her hands on her cannons, massaging the muscles there. She rolled her narrow shoulders. "I like King Edmund," she said irrelevantly, "he always has a bit of sugar about him."

Elizabeth gave up rubbing the filly down – she had to reach up and the mail on her arms was heavy and it had been a long day. She draped the blanket over the Centauress' back. "Shall we get you that wine?" she asked. The Centaurette whinnied and tossed her head.

"Oh, yes! That would be lovely!" She set off at a canter, checking herself after ten yards and trotting back to the human. "Sorry." Elizabeth laughed.

"My name is Elizabeth, who are you?" The Centaur-girl beamed.

"What a pretty name! My name is Hylonome," she said, crossing her forelimbs and bending her knees in what had to be a Centaur-curtsey. "I'm a Centauride," she added, correcting Elizabeth's unspoken errors. "I'm one of King Edmund's messengers in the Lantern Waste." She straightened and began to walk towards a large fire blazing against the chill of the evening and snow-clad ground.

"And you carry messages between King Edmund and Marshal . . . Nicodemus, was it?" Hylonome nodded and whistled piercingly through her teeth as they approached the fire.

"Ho! Wine for myself and the Daughter of Eve. And a bite to eat if you have it – I'm _starving_." She turned to Elizabeth, "Are you hungry?"

Elizabeth couldn't help but laugh – in every respect, this girl was a combination of the flighty pony-set she had known at school and their steeds. She couldn't – or _wouldn't_, if she were human – be more than fifteen going on _Bunty_. As a Dwarf approached with a great bowl of steaming wine for her and a goblet for Elizabeth, she laughed, "Yes, yes I am. Hardly eaten all day." She watched in wonder as the Centauride lifted the bowl to her lips and tilted it back – and back, and back, and _back_ – her slim throat pumping. Hylonome dropped the bowl to her side with a contented sigh.

"Ah," she slurred slightly, "I needed that." The Dwarf took the bowl from her and handed her a great haunch of meat, dripping hot fat and with rustic bread wrapped around the bone to save fingers from burns. "What were you saying?" she asked through a huge mouthful of flesh.

"Marshal Nicodemus?" Elizabeth asked, as a wooden platter holding a quite delightful roast pork, crackling and apple-sauce sandwich was put in her free hand.

"Oh, yes," crunched Hylonome as she demolished an apple – core, pips, stalk and all – in three quick bites. "He's King Edmund's commander in the Lantern Waste. He's _fantastic_ – best commander we've got. But he's not as good as General Oreius," she gushed. "He's _dreamy_. Have you met him?" Elizabeth nodded, beginning to answer. "He's not married, you know," continued the Centauride.

"Really?" was all Elizabeth could find to say. The Centauride gave the impression she was about to further eulogize General Oreius when Edmund's clear voice cut through the cold, crisp air.

"Hylonome!" He was holding aloft a sealed scroll. She stuffed the last of the haunch of meat into the mouth, stripping the last scraps of flesh from the bone and tossing the remains into the fire. She reared as she swallowed, turning within her spray of scattered snow, her dainty hooves whizzing over Elizabeth's head and causing her to duck.

"Nice meeting you!" she shouted over her shoulder, galloping to Edmund, snatching the scroll from his hand and zooming off west like an arrow from a bow, her hooves pounding and churning the snow into fans of white. Edmund laughed heartily and walked towards Elizabeth, accepting a Dwarf's offered goblet of wine.

"Ah, Hylonome," said softly to Elizabeth, "If I had but a dozen of her in my armies, Narnia would be a safer place."

"How many do you have?" she asked. Edmund took a swallow of his wine.

"A score."


	8. Sanctus Locus

**Chapter Eight : Sanctus Locus**

It had taken two Dwarfs and a small stepladder to put the armor on Elizabeth the next morning – although she was learning more about it now, and thought she might be capable of donning it herself and strapping herself into it. She had made the mistake of unlacing both sides and shoulders of the cuirass the night before, necessitating the whole thing being re-laced that morning. She could, the Dwarfs had said, as she was so _very_ slim (she wasn't, but compared to the Dwarfs she was), get away with simply unlacing one side and loosening the shoulders. "Then you'll be able to get into it on your own, Missie," one of the Dwarfs had told her as he tightened a buckle.

"But then I'd miss your delightful company," she had quipped, and the Dwarf had blushed the same color as his beard.

And now she found herself mounted on a dappled palfrey with a medium bow of ivory and horn on her shoulder and a quiver of good arrows on the hip not occupied by her sword, riding alongside King Edmund's light courser, following the line of the river on its south side through the forests and lowlands that made up this portion of Narnia.

There was something vibrant and alive about Narnia, reflected Elizabeth. Even here and now – in the early morning, in Winter, in the middle of a war, where nothing moved and nothing could be seen to grow – one could sense, with senses humans had perhaps deliberately forgotten, there was a roiling life beneath the white blanket. Even though everything with silent and still, it was silence between breaths as lungs reset rather than the silence of the grave. Narnia slept, but her dreams were exquisitely alive.

It was snowing, and both Edmund and Elizabeth were wearing large cloaks, weighted at the hem so they draped over the haunches of their steeds. They kept the horses at a brisk walk – with occasional breaks into a trot – to keep them from getting cold. The morning sun was bright but not warm, threatening to vanish as it rose into the thick low cloud.

They had set off shortly after breakfast – which had been taken in the freezing twilight of false-dawn, Edmund talking between mouthfuls with a motley collection of animals and creatures more strange about troop movements, lines of supply, logistics and the minutiae of their family lives. Elizabeth had spent breakfast coughing as the hot brandy caught in her throat and marveling at Edmund's skill; he seemed to know every one of his soldiers individually and had all the time in the world for them and their problems. A number of the creatures billeted there were part of the Army of the West, and a number more were the force Peter's Army of the North was sending on secondment to the Lone Island crusade, and Elizabeth had wondered how anything could stand against the spear-head force she was seeing; the armies as the body of the blade and Edmund as the point behind which everything thrust.

Edmund was now whistling tunelessly as he rode along, his armor and bridle jangling. _There is nothing more annoying,_ thought Elizabeth, _than a song you don't recognize being executed (in both senses of the word) in a manner you know is badly_. "Where are we going?" she asked, more for the purpose of getting him to talk rather than whistle than actually finding out.

"Beaversdam," he said carefully, hesitation on his lips. "It is another staging post – although slightly more permanent and smaller than Beruna – next to the river. It marks the easternmost point of the Western March and is as far as we can get in an easy day's travel. Tomorrow, we set out north for the Silver Citadel and meet with Marshal Nicodemus." She nodded.

"Where are we spending the night?" she asked, "At the encampment?" Edmund shook his head with what looked like an effort.

"No," he said slowly, "That was the message from Nicodemus, at least in part. I have an – _we_ have an invitation to stay at the house of one of the lords of the Lantern Waste." He paused and swallowed. "It would be . . . rude to refuse."

Elizabeth peered at the flat plateau that opened in front of her as she and her horse cleared the light forest they were moving through. She kicked her heels down and the horse stepped up into a trot, followed a second later by Edmund's courser. For a few minutes, there was silence save the thud of hooves onto snow and the jangling of metal and leather. Elizabeth jumped her horse over a fallen log that seemed to mark the beginning of the trees and reined back into a walk. The charger fell into step behind her. "You sound as if you'd rather not go," she said with puzzlement, "Don't you want to stay there?"

Edmund ran his tongue nervously over his teeth. "It's not that – well, yes, perhaps it is. I'm not sure they approve of me, my first impression was not favorable" He fiddled with his horse's reins. "I think . . . I never feel quite comfortable."

"Perhaps we should stay somewhere else?" asked Elizabeth after a pause. Edmund shook his head.

"No – as I said, it would be impolite to refuse – and unnecessary. It will only be a night – and the food is very nice." He looked over her and smiled. "We should be there by nightfall – probably earlier." He stopped and looked up at a hill to their left, maybe a quarter of a mile away, that had been revealed as they came out of the forest. "Or a little later if you want to do some sightseeing."

"What do you mean?" He nodded upwards, towards the hill, above the piled drifts around its base. The snow was stopping now, the clouds splitting with great rents that let slashes of crystal blue blaze coldly through. "What's that?"

"That," said Edmund with pardonable drama, "is the Stone Table."

"Ah," Elizabeth said slowly, sensing the weight of the place that was supposed to press on her. "Can we stop and have a look?" Edmund shrugged.

"It'll be cold up there – there's nothing to protect against the wind – and it's a steeper hill than it looks." He grinned into her disappointment. "Of course we can stop, Elizabeth! I'll warn you, though," he said seriously. "it doesn't look all that impressive."

They left the horses at the bottom of the hill and – using wooden staves Edmund cut from the trees they had just ridden through – pushed their way through the deep, crisp snow up the long incline of the hill. The distance was deceptive, and the slope punishing in cavalry boots and armor. Eventually – after more than one rest where the two of them each chided the other in gently mocking tones – they reached the top of the hill. Elizabeth straightened and forgot all about her aching ankles and calves and the wind that seemed to cut through her like a knife and freeze the joints of her armor solid.

They were standing on a flat, open space bounded on all sides by vistas of the spreading forest as far as the eye could see – except to the east. There, as Elizabeth looked back along the path she and Edmund had ridden towards Beruna and then followed the river towards the mouth, she could see the shifting, gleaming blue-gray of the sea leagues and leagues distant. A thunderstorm was roiling offshore, a black backdrop of leaping lightning against which Cair Paravel was a minute spike of argent stone.

"Wow," said Elizabeth, turning slowly around and seeing Narnia open up before her – the forests and rivers and hills, the great moorlands to the north, the mountains of Archenland to the south and the wild woods of the west, "This was worth the climb."

" I never seem to be able to make time to stop here any more," said Edmund dreamily beside her. "There's always an army that needs leading to victory, or a treaty that needs negotiating, or a tournament or something." He paused. "Do you think I'm growing up too fast?" he asked seriously. She laughed.

"Do you think I'm growing down fast enough?" Edmund laughed as well, and turned her to face the center of the open space.

"Come, look on what you came to see before the wind shears you to the bone." She turned reluctantly from staring at the waterfall that marked the western limit of Narnia and faced the Stone Table.

Her first thought was that it was simply a pile of stones, that the stories of a stone "table" were simply that – stories. And then she remembered it had cracked down the center when Aslan had resurrected. Echoes of earthquakes from Mark – or was it John? – flitted around her mind. She shoved them aside, both unwilling to dwell on the Bible and subconsciously realizing the two things weren't even vaguely comparable.

As she moved closer, she saw it was – indeed – a table; four upright stones supporting a great grim gray slab, now cracked down the middle with a single fissure. It was weathered and chipped, the deeply-carved markings on the sides and top worn almost smooth in places, filled with moss and lichen in others. She moved closer still, trying to see beneath the layers of snow and frost that lay on it. It didn't seem right it could be covered with snow – it should crackle with energy, melting the ice as soon as it touched. There should be steam on the hilltop, crackling lightning and rolling thunder. Yet the storm was far out at sea and here there was silence and stillness; a hill so solid it seemed not to know the meaning of earthquake, grass that had never seen flame and with a light breeze blowing.

Closer now, reaching out with a nervous hand – debating whether to remove her gauntlet, fearful of bare contact and fearful of disrespect implied. Caught between two worries, she reached out and brushed her fingers through the snow, slicing off a few layers, only touching snow. Still nothing.

And that was it, she realized – there was nothing here. She and Edmund had struggled up the hill and she had been awed by the beauty of the landscape around her. But that was it – there was nothing else. Almost contemptuously, she pushed her hand forward. Her fingers met unyielding stone, cold and rough and hard. Nothing.

She pulled her hand back and straightened, looking around her. Her handprint was left in the snow on the table and flecks of ice still clung to her gauntlet. Her fingers didn't tingle, didn't burn. She could still see and Edmund hadn't dragged her back with a rope around her ankle.

"What did you expect?" asked Edmund, breaking her reverie. She started and shook her head.

"I . . . I don't . . . nothing, I suppose." She turned to him. "What was I supposed to expect?" Edmund shrugged.

"Exactly what you did?" he suggested, "The place where Aslan died, the point in space about which Narnia turns? Narnia's Calvary?" He shrugged. "It's a place – nothing more. It's a stone slab placed on a hilltop with words carved on it. It was put here because there are beautiful views here; there are not beautiful views because it is here." She shook her head in wonder.

"But . . . surely . . ." Edmund smiled.

"If this was England, it would be surrounded by a museum, or with a plaque." He smiled, "or even a church. But it's not – this is Narnia. And in Narnia what happened here resonates in every blade of grass, every leaf on every tree and in the heart of every living thing." He picked up her staff and handed it to her. "You don't have to go to the Stone Table to find Aslan, you'll find him when you are not looking."

She took the length of wood from him and began to walk briskly down the hill. "I'm not looking for Aslan," she said, "I'm really not." Edmund smiled.

"Are you trying to double-bluff the universe?" he asked. A snowball hit him in the face.


	9. Reconciliation at Beaversdam

**Chapter Nine : Reconciliation at Beaversdam**

"And this is where we cross the river," said Edmund.

Elizabeth slid off her horse into the deepening gloom of the encroaching evening – there was steep decline leading into a narrow, deep valley and she did not wish to loose her steed to a broken leg. Snow – crisping to sparkling salt on the upper surface – crunched under her boots as she walked forward to stand beside Edmund.

Below them was a steep, narrow valley at the bottom of which ran the river, surging and chattering on the eastern side of the dam that swelled it into a deep, still pool on the west. The dam was impressive – a feat of engineering rather than instinct, with sluice gates through which water was crashing and with a railed walkway lain along the top. Elizabeth noticed it was wider than it needed to be and the road's surface was not made entirely with local timber; it was caulked and payed with pitch and rope. Beside her, Edmund chuckled.

"I always said the first thing I would do when I was King of Narnia was built some decent roads." He grinned at her in the twilight. "The Beaversdam encampment is just on the north side of the river." He began to lead his horse down the slope, Elizabeth following gingerly behind him.

"Edmund," she asked, "Does the river have a name?" Edmund stopped and turned to face her, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Dunno," he said, "I've never asked it." He turned and continued to lead his courser down the hill towards the dam and the little house shaped rather like an enormous beehive in the center of the dam. A comforting trickle of smoke pushed its way out of the chimney at the point of the roof and warm yellow light spilled from the little leaded windows.

"The Beavers!" said Elizabeth with delight. Edmund turned again.

"Beaversdam?" he asked. She pulled a face and chivvied her horse down the slope. Edmund knew the ground better than she and reached the dam first. Its hooves clattering on the tarred wooden boards, he lead his horse over the walkway with Elizabeth's palfrey close behind. He brushed the snow off his shoulders – and then hers as she stood next to him – and banged on the door of the little house with the knuckle of his gauntlet. There was a suppressed explosion from within;

"'Ow many times 'ave I told you?" came a voice that reminded Elizabeth of nothing more and nothing less than the stars of Guy Richie's movies, "You can cross the dam, but don't disturb us!" A flat-footed stumping could be heard moving towards the door, accompanied by a different voice, muffled by the wood. "I'm not bein' cranky, I'm jus' goin' ter give this 'ere soldier a lesson in manners," the first voice continued. "If he's not over the dam before 'e's very much older, 'e's goin' in the water!" The door popped open, to reveal a short, dark, furry creature with a flat tail and prominent teeth. "King Eddie's gonna be narked at you, sunshine, you mark my words!"

Edmund smiled down at the beaver. "Baron," he said simply, and bowed. The beaver's mouth dropped open and remained like that for some time. Behind him, a smaller beaver wearing spectacles on her whiskered nose appeared.

"Well, look who it is." She dropped a curtsey. "Your majesty is most welcome, sire." She nudged her husband. "Isn't he, Beaver?" Mr Beaver's mouth remained gawping open. "Close it, love, there's a Centaur coming," his wife said in a stage whisper.

"You are the model of hospitality, Baroness, as always," said Edmund with a formal grace. "May I present Lady Elizabeth, a visitor from the other side of the wardrobe door? Elizabeth, the Baroness Beaver of Beaversdam." Elizabeth and the Baroness both curtseyed and then her husband was nudged again.

"Oh, yeah. Erm, I mean, your majesty," he stammered, "I meant no disrespect, Sire, it's just that . . ." Edmund held up a hand.

"I will speak with Marshal Nicodemus regarding my troops' conduct, Baron," he said smoothly. "The conditions for the use of Beaversdam are very clear – my Captains should not need to be reminded, but I will see they are." He jangled the bridle of his horse. "May I have stabling for our steeds?" Mr Beaver nodded swiftly.

"Oh, yes, your majesty. Give us the reins and I'll take 'em, you get yourself inside." His wife kicked him. "Sire." Edmund bowed stiffly and gravely.

"Baron, it is getting dark and the ground is icy – I shall assist you. Doubtless the ladies will have much to talk about." Elizabeth handed the reins of her horse to Mr Beaver, who followed Edmund over the dam into the gathering gloom towards a barely-visible stable built against the wall of the river-valley. Mrs Beaver looked up at Elizabeth.

"Oh, but you look cold!" she exclaimed, "You need a cup of tea. Come inside, dearie, and get warm while the men sort out the horses." She stepped backwards to let Elizabeth duck under the low lintel of the door and move into the little smoky house. She took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkness and switch to the yellow end of the spectrum; the only light came from the lantern hanging from the roof level with her eyes if she stood. She unslung the bow with an effort and leaned it against the wall, followed by her sword-belt. Over by the range, Mrs Beaver was busying herself with a kettle and teapot. "Tea, dearie?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, _please_!" said Elizabeth rather more eagerly than she had meant to, looking around at the cozy little house with the bunks built into the walls and the strings of onions and hams and bunches of carrots hanging from the roof. Against the wall were stood the contents of the garden sheds belonging to several men who wanted to get away from their wives at the weekend – or perhaps simply one dam-proud beaver. "Something non-alcoholic, bliss!" she exclaimed. Mrs Beaver turned around to face her.

"I've got some beer if you want, dearie," she said, a pinch of tea hovering above the pot. Elizabeth shook her head as Mrs Beaver waved her onto a stool.

"Oh, no – tea will be more than perfect," she said as she lowered herself gingerly onto it, trying to spread out the chain-mail and leather skirt, failing, and eventually giving up and just unbuckling it, taking it off and rolling it up. She lay it on her lap as she sat down. As the kettle sang, Mrs Beaver poured water into the teapot and left it to stew as she sat down in her rocking chair by the fire.

"Well, there we are, dearie – tea'll be ready soon, and I've got us something lovely for supper." She peered over her glasses as Elizabeth. "I'd take the armor off, dearie – you won't feel the benefit otherwise." As Elizabeth smiled and began to tug at the gauntlets, Mrs Beaver continued. "How was the ride up from Beruna? Hylonome delivered a message from King Edmund this morning, well, the middle of the night, actually." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone, "I think that Centaur is just a little too full of beans."

Elizabeth laughed as she began to unlace the left side of her armor "Yes," she said, "but she's sweet."

"Oh, that she is," agreed Mrs Beaver, reaching for the teapot and pouring two cups and popping a tea-cozy over the steaming pot with practiced ease. As Elizabeth shrugged herself out of the cuirass, Mrs Beaver handed Elizabeth her drink. "I'm so glad King Edmund came here," she said, "he hardly ever stays here when he comes this way. The High King is always busy, of course, but we see Queen Susan a lot in the Summer – she loves to go swimming in the pool, you know. And Lucy – I mean, her majesty – is always here on and off. But King Edmund rarely visits us, even though this is his territory." She sipped her tea.

"Yes," said Elizabeth, blowing on the surface of the hot drink to cool it, "I wondered at that. Why doesn't he come here? Is he rarely in the Lantern Waste?" Mrs Beaver shook her head.

"Oh no, dearie – he's always out and about is King Edmund. He's constantly here – always leading his armies against the Witch's people. He spends a lot of his time up at the Silver Citadel with Marshal Nicodemus, and always comes past here when he comes and goes to the Cair." She sighed. "He just doesn't visit that often." She shook her head. "It's such a shame, for he's such a nice young man." She looked at Elizabeth. "We owe him so much, all of Narnia."

"But . . ." Elizabeth was puzzled. "Why doesn't he come? I mean . . . what reason could there be?" Mrs Beaver looked over each shoulder carefully – although Elizabeth could have stood in the center of the room and touched one wall with her sword and the other with her bow, Mrs Beaver apparently wanted to make sure they were alone.

"Well," she whispered, "I don't mean to speak out of turn, and I'm sure I don't mean any harm by it, but – between you and me and the fencepost – I think it might be down to . . ."

"Stone me, but it's parky out there!" Mr Beaver's voice cut into the conversation as the door crashed open. His eyes took in the teapot on the table. "Nice one, you've got the rosie on! Pour us a cuppa, will you, luv?" He dropped himself into a stool and reached for his pipe as his wife poured him a cup of tea. He turned to Elizabeth. "You 'ungry, Lady Elizabeth?"

"Well, if it's no trouble . . ." Mr Beaver rubbed his paws together.

"Not at all, not at all – got some nice fish broth. The trouble made it earlier today, very nice. Pukka grub and no mistake." He turned to Edmund who was standing immobile by the door. "You want a bowl, your majesty?" Edmund inclined his head gravely.

"That would be delightful, Baron – thank you." The Baron looked up at the King.

"Your majesty," he said carefully, "may I speak candidly?" Edmund suddenly looked less like a King and more like a boy about to step into the Headmaster's office.

"Of course, Baron," he said evenly. Mr Beaver raised an eyebrow, an action that caused Elizabeth to give a little hiccup of laughter she managed to turn into a cough.

"Sire, this ain't Cair Paravel – you don't need to call me Baron and you don't need to stand on ceremony." His wife gave a little suppressed exclamation Elizabeth quietened. "I know you're uncomfortable 'ere – and I'm really sorry about that. It's a shame, 'cause both me and the missus think you're a real diamond geezer. You've protected all of us in the wood, you've put your life on the line and your money where your mouth is."

"I know what I did, Beaver," said Edmund flatly, his knife-gray eyes staring coldly at him, seeing him as a mirror to reflect his own stare back. Mr Beaver stood up – the effect was marred by the fact Edmund would have still been taller had he been sitting down.

"Yeah, and so do we all," he said. "You betrayed us to the Witch." Mrs Beaver gulped and put her hand over her mouth in shock. "And if you want to beat yourself over the 'ead with that for the rest of your life, be my guest. I, 'owever, 'ave better things to do – like remember the fact you shattered 'er wand, and you lead the army against her, and you 'ave poured out your blood and strength like water to defend my 'ome!" Beaver blew his breath out in an exasperated sigh and slumped down into his chair. "I, Edmund, am goin' to 'ave a glass of beer – would you like one?" Mrs Beaver stopped wringing her paws.

"Oh, your majesty, I'm sure my husband didn't mean to speak out of turn," she began, "I'm sure what he meant was . . ."

"I know what I meant!" he snapped, moving to the beer barrel. He twisted the spigot and watched the foam build on the bottom of his mug and climb up the wooden sides. "I waited for years for the prophecy to come true, and I never thought I'd see it. And then you, and the High King, and your sisters came into Narnia and fulfilled the prophecy in the only ways that mattered! You rule from Cair Paravel and you are the best Kings we 'ave ever even 'eard legends of!" He twisted the tap back and turned around, taking a savage pull from his beer. "'Ow many people 'ave you offered mercy to? Even the wolves, your majesty, even the flipin' wolves!" He slumped back down in his stool and slammed his mug on the table, beer sloshing everywhere. "Why can't you give yourself the forgiveness you 'ave given others?"

There was silence in the room except the drip-drip of beer to the floor and the crackle of the fire. Edmund sat very carefully down, intently examining the frayed tip of a strap on his vambrace. He toyed idly with it as he struggled to find his voice. "I . . . I'm sorry," he said eventually, "You try so hard to make amends, and . . . it's never enough."

"Oh, but it is!" exclaimed Mrs Beaver. "Isn't it, love?" she asked her husband, who nodded briskly, "We all forgave you – everyone did. You don't have to make amends for us." Edmund raised his eyes, tears glinting in them.

"No," he said, his voice on the verge of breaking, "I have to do it for myself." He closed his eyes and a tear trickled down his cheek. "And it's never enough." There was silence as the beavers sat nervously, unsure of what to do or say. Elizabeth put her hand on his arm.

"That's what the crusade is about, isn't is?" she asked him softly, "You think you can set the rescue of the Lone Islands against your sin." He nodded softly, biting his lip. "Did Aslan teach you that?" He shook his head bitterly. "And what _did_ he teach you?" He looked up at her.

"Is this revenge, Lady Elizabeth?" he smiled through his tears. She wiped one of them away with her thumb.

"This is _mothering_, Edmund," she said softly. "A woman can't choose her sons, but if I did they would be like you." He bowed his head and shook it softly.

"No, not like me. Like Peter, like Susan, like Lucy. Not like me." Elizabeth titled his chin up.

"Why did Aslan teach you what he taught you?" she asked. "And why can you make everyone else see it but can't see it yourself? Why does Aslan's sacrifice not apply to the man he made it for?" He gave a rather lopsided, bleak smile. "You are your own worst critic, Edmund." He managed a rather better smile.

"Thank you," he whispered to Elizabeth. "Thank you all." The beavers made little embarrassed noises that suggested it was quite alright.

"Now we've got that out of the way," said Mrs Beaver with a sigh of relief, "how about some of that fish stew? It's got mushrooms in it, your majesty – I know you like mushrooms."


	10. Nicodemus

**Chapter Ten : Nicodemus**

Breakfast the next morning - after an invigorating but freezing wash and brush-up in the deep, still, icy pool - was kippers with brown bread and butter (rather more butter than bread) and tea that threatened to take the enamel off Elizabeth's teeth. Mrs Beaver packed up a good few helpings of the fish broth in an earthenware jar, together with some apples and biscuit and bread and cheese and a few strips of salted and dried fish, twisted and fissured like old leather, and put them in Edmund's saddlebag. She on tiptoe to give them whiskery kisses on each cheek as her husband wrung their hands earnestly. And then Elizabeth slung her bow onto her shoulder and Edmund lead them towards the stable, stopping at the end of the dam to wave back at the little figures standing in the sunlight in front of the house.

The horses didn't seem to want to leave the warmth of the cozy building, but - after Elizabeth and Edmund fitted the saddles and bridles and mounted - they had little choice in the matter. They wheeled out of the stable and cantered up the northern side of the valley in a jangle of armor and harness. A flash of sunlight from Edmund's gauntlet and then they were above the valley and out of sight of the little house down below.

Edmund led them at a brisk trot through the woods, angling north and a little west towards two hills between which a river flowed. This part of Narnia was different to the land Elizabeth and he had ridden through yesterday; it was higher and colder, more open and barren. The horses' hooves clattered on rock sometimes as they crunched through the snow and the trees here were hardy pines. Huge stones reared on either side of the path, forcing it to twist around them, and the little river that chattered to their right leaped from stone lip to rock shelf in tiny waterfalls.

"So," said Elizabeth, simply to break the wild empty silence, "this is the Lantern Waste?" Edmund shook his head, and then thought better of it.

"Well, technically yes," he said. He reined in his horse and dropped back beside her as the path widened between two towering cliffs - each easily the height of a giant - that ascended in a series of snow- and pine-covered steps on either side of them. "But it's better known as the Western March, the inhabited portion of the Lantern Waste - which is everything west of Beaversdam." He sniffed the air - cold and clear and clean and crisp - and smiled. "This is my portion of Narnia, the area Aslan gave me to defend."

Elizabeth rolled her shoulders nervously - something didn't seem quite right; both she and her horse were skittish and jittery. "I thought you were the King of all of Narnia?" she asked.

"Oh, I am," said Edmund, casually flinging his cloak off his right arm, "but each one of us has a particular attachment, or duty, to certain regions of this fair land. I am the Duke of the Lantern Waste and the Count of the Western March. Peter's region is to the north - the moorlands and heather south of the Shribble. Lucy's land is the eastern woods around the mouth of the river - she is the Duchess of Glasswater and the Chatelaine of Cair Paravel. South of the river . . ." Elizabeth remembered Mr. Beaver's accent.

"Lambeth?" she suggested. Edmund laughed heartily.

"South of the river Narnia is . . . softer, warmer, gentler - that's Susan's. It blends into the mountains of Archenland eventually." He grinned. "Aslan mentioned it in passing at our coronation, but - after a few months of pointless arguing - Su and I insisted on the division being made in fact and in law. It makes sense - four monarchs will pull a land in many different directions, but this arrangement allows for a rule without conflict. Of course," he continued, "for a lot of the time we are away from our lands - Peter is always at war - most often in the west - and Susan and Lucy are often at the Cair. I seem to be perpetually in the saddle. That is why we have the four Marshals."

"Like Nicodemus?" she asked. He nodded.

"And Tumnus, and Altaica, and Coriadine - may he rest in peace," said Edmund. "They administer our lands when we are not there - and, to be candid, even when we are there usually." He shrugged. "Countries do not run themselves, nor do wars. Nicodemus is - and Coriadine was - more of a general than an administrator; I would take him to the Lone Islands if I thought the Waste could spare him."

"Good job you have Michael," Elizabeth said as cheerfully as she could manage. It wasn't just the cold - there was something here making her uneasy.

"Yes," said Edmund. "His arrival has been a blessing for both Peter and I. With Coriadine dead, and the crusade imminent, we are a commander short. The south and east are the peaceful areas of Narnia - bordered by the sea and Archenland, and protected from the Giants on our northern border by the lands near the Shribble. But the north and west - those are where the war is being fought."

"_These_ are where the war is being fought," Elizabeth said urgently, thinking she recognized her unease. "Edmund! We are riding here alone - we're just asking to get ambushed!" Edmund grinned infectiously and drew his sword.

"Of course we are," he said, as the wolf slammed him off his horse.

It all happened too fast for Elizabeth to fully comprehend – she was gripped by the freezing feeling she got in car smashes and tense standoffs with drunken men in alleys. Wolves – too many to count, it seemed – were bounding and dropping down and from the cliffs, seeming to her adrenaline-blurred vision to be gray and white detachments from the stone and snow. Skidding on the ice-covered ground as they landed, leaping from the rocks above her head with a snarl, the valley floor filled up with lupine bodies.

Next to her, lying on his back on the ground, Edmund grunted with the effort as he stood and threw his foe off him – his sword sliding from its belly as he did so, leaving it smeared with hair and blood. He gained his balance and reached for something at his hip. "Get off your horse!" he screamed as her hands reached despite her fear for her bow and an arrow. "He'll bolt!"

Sure enough, the horse reared backwards as she fitted an arrow to the string, sending her first shot missing by a country mile. She tumbled backwards, landing on the floor with a winding crunch as Edmund raised a horn to his lips. The swirling note echoed and reverberated, bouncing from cliff to crag and upwards and away as she fumbled an arrow from the quiver and shot – lying on her back supine – down the mouth of a wolf just about to rend her throat out.

"Kill them both!" howled a voice above her, gray and horrible. "Whichever wolf slays Edmund may eat his heart!"

"If you think there are enough of you, Varden!" cried Edmund. His hand was wrapped in his cloak now and he was dancing around the wolves, his horn hanging from his shoulders by a long baldric. His bloody blade wove a net of gleaming ruby steel around him, yellow eyes and gray fur splitting with crimson slashes.

_I think there might be,_ mused Elizabeth, grabbing another arrow and trying to fit it. She didn't even have nearly enough time and – without thinking – simply stabbed it forwards. It tore a bloody track along the cheek of a wolf and lodged there, being torn from her grasp as he jerked his head back. She scrambled to her feet and wrenched her sword free, taking in the two-dozen or more wolves on the valley floor, more bounding down the sides of the canyon or howling from the top. She was back to back with Edmund now and her world had narrowed to nothing more than the very next second and her swirling blade, snow and snarls and blood and fur and flesh.

A wolf leaped at her, one hundred and fifty pounds or more of frost-rimed fur and gnarled muscle propelling knife-white fangs at her face. She raised her arm instinctively, slashing wildly with her sword. She felt it strike something and then the creature crashed into her, its speed and weight knocking her back and off her feet with a dizzying impact.

Edmund risked a glance around him – less than a score of wolves; terror didn't render _him_ unable to count. This could still be won. He twisted his arm, throwing his cloak over the head of one of the wolves charging him and whirling to the side like a matador. His sword arched out, severing the spine of the wolf pinning Elizabeth to the ground and stabbing a second in the heart. Behind him, the wolf regained its feet and threw itself at his back, knocking him over in the snow. From above him, two more wolves – one of them with a scared face and a white-lensed eye – dropped downwards, landing on him with crippling force.

"Time to die, Son of Adam!" snarled Varden, sending his teeth arching towards Edmund's neck. His fangs snapped shut an inch from the boy's flesh as Elizabeth grabbed him by the tail and hauled backwards with all her might. As Edmund threw off the other two wolves and grabbed one of them by the neck, Varden turned like an eel and howled in Elizabeth's face, his teeth leering for her.

"Tally-ho!" The voice – high and clear as a Summer gale – cut through the butcher-sounds of the combat, seeming to shake loose the snow from Elizabeth's ears. With a sickening crunch, an iron-shod hoof crashed into Varden's face – passing so close to Elizabeth it brushed her sweaty hair.

A shattered fang span away – bouncing off Elizabeth's armor with a ping – as Varden was half-thrown, half-whimpered back, away from the terrifying rider. With a clatter of iron on stone the horse settled, landing in the impossibly small space between her and Edmund, all four of its hooves in an area the size of a dinner plate. A slim naked arm reached down and grabbed Edmund by the shoulder, hauling him up as the horse leaped again, leaving the King standing upright with a wolf in one fist and a sword in the other. Almost contemptuously, he married the two.

Elizabeth rolled over in the snow, grabbing for her fallen bow. She rolled to a kneel and fitted an arrow to the string and drew it back. With a flush of joy, she recognized what she had assumed was a supremely skilled rider as Hylonome, a long spear twirling in her hands like a majorette's baton. Behind the Centauride were another two Centaurs – one chestnut like Oreius and one piebald like her; massive stallions with hooves the size of bucklers and craggy muscles you could climb.

"It's a trap!" howled Varden. Edmund leveled his sword at him and beckoned him with his free hand.

"And you were hoping I'd say that," he purred. He span his blade in a casually dreadful manner. "Yield or die, vermin." Varden drew back, not in retreat, but to spring forward, hoping to shatter the boy King's bones with his greater weight and end this battle abruptly. Edmund braced to receive the charge, his gray eyes narrowed. Around them, the wolves and Centaurs stood at bay – waiting to see how this conflict would end.

But Elizabeth, crouched where she was, an arrow nocked and the bow half-taut, could see something neither of them could. _Another_ wolf, well-fed and sleek, his gray fur glossy and opal eyes winking in the sunlight, was bounding down the cliff, leaping from crag to crag, rock to rock, getting ready to spring down into the middle of the duel like a hammer blow. Without even a pause, Elizabeth drew back the arrow, her vision narrowing to the point of the arrow and a patch of fur on the wolf's breast. _This is between the wolf and the boy_, she silently said to herself.

She was snapped out of her concentration as Hylonome cantered towards her, her right fore-foot stamping down on the arrow point and forcing it – and the bow, and Elizabeth's hands – down into the snow. "No!" yelled the Centauride and the human simultaneously as – with a howl and bunched muscles – the wolf hurled itself forward.

The two wolves tumbled together, snapping and snarling amid the scattering snow, as Edmund raised his sword to guard. "Nicodemus!" snarled Varden's voice in disbelief. "Traitor!"

With a hideous snarl and a spray of crimson blood, the Marshal of the Lantern Waste flung back his head, tearing out the throat of his former master. "Coming from you," he growled, "that almost sounds like a compliment."

Edmund glanced around; both ends of the valley were blocked by burly Centaurs. He looked at each of the six wolves, holding each one individually in his gaze. "My offer stands."

"Never!" howled the largest of the wolves. Almost regretfully, Edmund swept his sword down and the Centaurs charged. The wolves' world dissolved in blood and iron.

Hylonome moved her hoof off Elizabeth's gauntleted fist – if it weren't for the armor, her fingers would have been broken. "Sorry!" she exclaimed. "But I couldn't let you shoot Marshal Nicodemus." Elizabeth accepted the Centauride's offer of a hand up as she flexed her wounded fingers. She felt faint and weak all-over and very quickly sat down on a convenient rock. "Are you hurt? Do you want me to get a physician?"

"No, no," she gasped, "it's fine – I'm just . . . just a little shaken." That was true enough – and her whole body felt bruised and battered. Her arm ached and spikes of pain shot through her shoulder. She took deep breaths to try to stop herself feeling sick – it didn't work. Edmund was talking, and she forced herself to listen to him. _That_ worked.

"Nice timing, Marshal." His chest was heaving – this had been closer than he liked. He looked over at Elizabeth, cleaning his sword as the Centaurs moved carefully around, administering the coups de grace with long spears. "Are you alright?" She managed to nod.

"You could have told me," she chided, bitterly. She shoved her hair back, feeling snow and sweat slide off it. He looked guilty.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think they would attack in such force – they only had a day to prepare." He turned to Hylonome, "You 'lost' the message yesterday?" She nodded firmly.

"Yes, your majesty." The Centauride felt it must somehow be her fault, and was thanking Aslan neither of the humans seemed seriously hurt. "You only gave me it the day before – they must have known you were coming somehow."

"Spies?" asked the piebald Centaur-stallion. Edmund shook his head with worry.

"I like not that suggestion, Captain – Queen Susan and Marshal Altaica must be told of the possibility in that case. Spies south of the river? It casts a shadow over all our plans." Hylonome leaned down to Elizabeth and whispered in her ear.

"That's my daddy," she said proudly. "He's one of Marshal Nicodemus' Captains. He's not a Marshal, but he will be one day." She beamed with daughterly-pride. "King Edmund says I'm _just_ like him. He taught me to fight, he's very brave – he was in the Battle of Beruna" Her sensual mouth turned down at the corners. "They said I was too young and precious to join in," she pouted. And then inquisitiveness swept annoyance off her face, "What's your daddy like?"

The Centauride did not know it, but there was nothing that could have sharpened Elizabeth's mind and body more. Something flowed through her veins – hot and burning and dreadfully healing – and the pain vanished and she felt strength fill her frame. "My mother always said if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all," she said with disgusted relish, "so he's nothing. He left my mother for another woman when I was younger than you. He was never there and – even when he was – it was clear his loyalties didn't lie with us. He bought me ponies and the best education – I'd have traded it all for him telling me I was too young and precious to risk in a battle." She stood and fixed Hylonome with a flat stare. "The only thing he taught me was no matter how much you cry brokering that big deal will always be more important." She bent to retrieve her sword. "My shrink says I'm _just_ like him." She shoved the blade home with unnecessary force.

Hylonome certainly wasn't unintelligent, but she was sensitive – she drew back into herself and looked like she was about to cry. "I'm sorry," she said. She seemed to consider, "Maybe you can make up with him?" Elizabeth spun to face her.

"You think I want to?" she snarled sarcastically. The Centauride swallowed nervously and gathered her courage – since birth, she had been told what was right, _and_ that humans were always right. She closed her eyes and did what she always did when she was scared and confused – imagined the huge Lion she had seen only once. It never failed.

Hylonome shook her head. "But I think you _should_," she said softly. Elizabeth looked as if she might strike the Centauride, and then simply snorted in a tone that said she was not about to admit the horse-girl was right. She stalked off, leaving Edmund and the others standing alone amid the gnarled bundles of bone and fur.


	11. Thirty Spires of Silver

**Chapter Eleven : Thirty Spires of Silver**

Elizabeth's shoulder was locking with stiffening bruises and her back winced away whenever she moved under the armor by the time she, Edmund and Nicodemus – loping alongside their horses like an impossibly large gray dog – reached the Silver Citadel. Hylonome and her father had galloped after the bolted horses, managing to catch up with them and – by some sort of horsey-magnetism – persuade them to come back despite the scent of blood and excitement in the air.

Edmund was a little ahead of Elizabeth and – as the valley opened out – he felt her slow and almost stop behind him. He reined in his horse as Nicodemus ran forward, splashing through the shallow river that chattered between them and their destination, deep-chested and swift on his padding paws. Edmund span his horse and called back at Elizabeth.

"Nearly there!" But, by now, she had reined to a halt and was simply looking at the scene before them. There, on the other side of the river, not far away, in the middle of a plain between two hills, she saw what must be the Silver Citadel – certainly an apt name, for it was white as the deep snow around it, all spikes and points and little towers, needle sharp and casting a long shadow on the hills behind it from the southern sun. Edmund – front-lit by that same sun – sat on a rearing horse before it, his shadow lying across the shattered rent where the front gate and towers had once stood.

"The Witch's House . . ." breathed Elizabeth. Something of the wind must have caught her words and wafted them to Edmund, for they were so quiet there was no way he could have heard them normally. He nodded, perhaps understanding, and reined his horse into stillness, gently nudging it towards her.

"Not any more," said Edmund reassuringly. "This is the Silver Citadel, the capital of the Lantern Waste. It was promised to me by its previous owner and – even if she did not mean it – I would always do my best to have her keep those promises she could."

For a second, Elizabeth simply stared at Edmund – there was something harsh and lupine about his face and the way he sat on the horse like a wolf perched on a crag. She remembered the way Nicodemus had bowed his head to him, the casual violence of his destruction of those that threatened him. And behind him reared a mighty castle of the far north, an outpost far from the sunlight and warmth of the Cair. She shivered, and the moment passed. She kicked her horse into a canter and – with Edmund beside her – splashed through the river. It was cold, but not deep, and barely came to the knees of the horses. She drew up her feet as she rode across to save her boots from the water and then kicked down as the horses struggled out of the river on the other side, shaking water out of their fur and tails with little shivering motions. She looked ahead to see Nicodemus weaving his way through tumbled masonry rimed with thick slabs of ice, entering the great courtyard of the castle. She and Edmund dismounted and lead their horses into the little maze of chaotic stone and ice, finding a small niche that had had a wooden roof and door attached, and the floor strewn with warm straw. They stripped off the saddles of the horses and removed the bridles and left them in the stable with nosebags full of oats.

As Edmund and Elizabeth moved out into the courtyard proper, she looked upwards, seeing the castle's detail for the first time. The walls which reared all around her were incomplete – but not tumbled with the passage of time, but rather melted with the absence of magic. The fortress walls were spurs and spars and ribs of white stone with great spaces between them – great spaces that had once been filled with huge sheets of ice as thick as masonry, blue as steel and smooth as oil. Iron grilles had been set for windows and doors, frozen into the walls – but now these were tumbled to the ground, lying flat in the snow or partially-frozen into the lower ice-sheets.

"It melts every Spring," said Edmund dreamily in her ear, making her jump, "There's just the skeleton left by the time the blossom comes. But every Winter, the ice grows back – less than complete the first year, and less than then in this." He paused. "I wonder how long it will be before it vanishes completely." He laughed softly. "It will almost seem a shame."

"It's beautiful," Elizabeth said in an awed whisper. The sunlight shattered itself on the fractured ice, splitting into shimmering rainbows of light that cut through the banks of fog that lay in the corners and painting the snow crimson and green and blue and gold. Here and there icicle-railings sparkled like stars and the sullen weight of silver-silence pressed on her like a mantle.

"So was she," said Edmund softly, leading the way towards an arched doorway across the snow-strewn courtyard, criss-crossed by the unmistakable paw-prints of wolves. Even to Elizabeth's dull senses, the scent of wolf-spoor was clear.

"The wolves have been here," she began, her hand straying to the hilt of her sword. Edmund laughed softly.

"_My_ wolves have been here - and live here," he purred. She looked at him, a mix of puzzlement and shock on her face. "Come now, Lady Elizabeth - did you think Nicodemus was the only only one of Jadis' former servants who has come to call me Alpha?" He paused and grinned at her. "And there were _always_ wolves who did not offer their throats to the Witch."

Elizabeth's eyes widened in surprise as she realized her previous musings and misgivings might have very-well been right - he had, more than any other of his siblings, taken on the mantle of the previous monarch of Narnia. The northern outpost, the ruthless power and leadership, and the cadre of wolves were all of a piece; an heirloom he had been promised in lies but had taken in truth. She shivered as Edmund stepped through the doorway and she followed.

Through it was a small room, stone walled and with a smooth floor. In one corner a stack of firewood was neatly drying and a fireplace and chimney took up the opposite corner. A set of spiral stairs lead upwards into darkness and mystery. Nicodemus was already there, setting spars of wood in the grate with his mouth. Edmund pulled a thick hide curtain over the doorway and lit a lantern – the room filled with a cheerful yellowish glow.

"Brought down a deer yesterday evening," Nicodemus said, stepping aside to let Edmund light the fire, "Would your majesty like some venison?" The wood caught, smoke flowing backwards down the cold flue. Edmund grabbed a burning branch and shoved it up the chimney, trying to warm the column of air.

"Yes, please," he coughed. He gestured at the bag he had brought in from his horse. "There's some wine in there, Elizabeth, and some cheese and fruit." She fumbled around as the smoke was sucked into the chimney, pulling out a flask of wine and a few leather pouches. She unsheathed her knife and considered what she knew about butchering meat – it wasn't much.

Nicodemus was dragging the carcass of a deer – a large doe – down the stairs, it's neck mangled and broken with a single blow. Edmund stood from tending the fire – which had now settled down to a babble of amber tongues – and took the knife from Elizabeth. He looked at Nicodemus. "You caught it – first cut is yours." Nicodemus seemed to shrug.

"Take what you like – you children of Adam and Eve barely eat anything." Edmund smiled and began to fillet the backstrap, wrapping it around itself and a handful of herbs and skewering it together. He broke a few ribs with a twist of his knife and smeared them with some of the fat, sprinkling a pinch of salt and herbs on them. He placed them on the metal grille suspended above the fire and settled down to wait with a mug of wine in his hand. Elizabeth took up the position mirroring him on the other side of the room, while Nicodemus lay – supine and seemingly asleep – on the floor in front of the fire. There was silence for a few minutes, broken only by the smell of roasting meat and the hiss of fat in the flames.

Elizabeth was nodding off – her body aching and her bones tired. And when the other two began to discuss the disposition of troops – and place-names she had never heard, and regiments she could not even imagine – her eyelids drooped. It was only noon, but she was hungry and tried, weary and exhausted. Her head dropped to her chest and she slept.

She was awoken by the sensation of saliva in her mouth – her sense of smell was still working – and opened her eyes to see that Edmund was cutting a slice of bread for her and placing a few ribs and some cuts of meat on it, together with some cheese and fruit. She took it as Edmund started on his and Nicodemus bent his head and – with a terrible crunching of bone and sinew – chewed his way through great slabs of meat and viscera. The venison was smoky and toothsome, the slightest bit burnt on the outside and good and bloody in the middle, the wine was good and it was a merry meal. There was little conversation – except the odd noise of contentment – and time passed pleasantly.

Only one small incident marred an otherwise delightful experience; without thinking, Elizabeth finished stripping the flesh from her ribs and simply tossed the chewed bones down at the massive canine in front of her. There was a moment of shocked silence, and then Elizabeth realized what she had done. It was only the look of abject horror and shame that flashed across her face that stopped Nicodemus from flinging a slab of bleeding meat into her face.

"I . . . I'm terribly sorry," she said, blushing. She reached forward and picked up the fragment of bone. "I didn't think." Nicodemus' yellow eyes narrowed.

"Well, think _next_ time," he growled. It looked as if her were smiling, but Elizabeth knew enough about canines to know the bared teeth were a warning. She swallowed nervously and was about to apologize again, when Nicodemus shook his massive head. "No, I'm sorry – you meant nothing by it. Anyone could have made that mistake." He licked his blood-stained jaws clean and switched off the smile that wasn't. "I apologize, Daughter of Eve."

"I . . . that is . . ." Elizabeth began. Edmund interrupted her.

"Shall we talk armies?" he asked diplomatically. Elizabeth smiled weakly.

"I thought we already had?" she asked. "I think it put me to sleep." She paused. "I'm turning into Queen Susan."

"Your archery needs work," quipped Nicodemus. She made a face at him and – suddenly – they were friends. The wolf continued. "As per your instructions, sire, I have sent orders for all the troops bar the Centaurs to move downriver and assemble at Beaversdam. Naturally, I have ordered the Centaurs to disperse over the whole of the Lantern Waste – although defending it with forces spread so thinly will be difficult."

Edmund's pleasant smile didn't waver, but there was an almost imperceptible shift in his stance and scent which told Elizabeth the wolf was supposed to judge the human's expression by his own, lupine, standards. "Those were not my orders, Marshal – my orders were to preserve the Western March via defense of its borders. The Lantern Waster is too large – and too heavily forested – to hold effectively with the Centaurs under your command." Nicodemus growled.

"Which was the very point I made to your majesty," he said. "I cannot hold the Lantern Waste with the forces you leave me."

"It is indeed fortunate, Marshal," said Edmund with a thin smile, "that task is one which I have not asked to accomplish." Nicodemus broke the femur of the doe with a casual twist of his neck, but Edmund remained unimpressed. "My desire is for the Western March to be held with the forces you have available – the Lantern _Waste_ will be abandoned. Once the Lone Islands are conquered – and their people freed – we shall complete this war." Nicodemus narrowed his opal eyes.

"You cannot just abandon the Lantern Waste, sire!" Edmund interrupted him.

"_I_ am not abandoning the Lantern Waste – _we_ are abandoning the Lantern Waste, Marshal," he said flatly, "I will have your support in this matter." Nicodemus growled.

"Have you forgotten what that land is, your majesty?" he implored. "It was in the Lantern Waste that Aslan walked when he sang the world into being, it was there the Tree was planted, the Lantern itself is there – the signpost to the world of Adam and Eve." He gestured with his lupine head in the direction of Elizabeth. "The silver to make that armor came from the Argent Tree, cut down by Queen Swanwhite herself. Aslan only knows what else should happen here – and might not if we don't hold onto it!" Edmund remained impassive, his lips pressed tightly together. Elizabeth remained silent – unwilling to upset or anger either one of them. Presently, Edmund spoke, softly and with inexorable logic.

"You say much of what the Lantern Waste _was_ and _might be_, Marshal." His words were slow and measured, his fingertips pressed together and his eyes half-veiled. "You do not speak at all of what it _is_ – let me tell you what the Lantern Waste is. It is a forest; too dense for anything except the woodland animals to settle in for the most part. It has no strategic value, no material value. It is, admittedly, beautiful and filled with history. It is inhabited by few, save the trees themselves. It is, utterly, impossible to defend against the guerrilla warfare the traitor wolves of the Western Wild practice – only by ambush and counter-ambush do we have a hope of victory unless they are foolish enough to meet us in open battle; and such a battle will not be fought in the Waste." His speech had been smooth and without hesitation, but now he paused and looked at Nicodemus. "I realize, Marshal, the attachment that the Woodland Folk feel for the Lantern Waste, but we must appreciate . . ."

"You don't understand at all!" exploded the wolf, leaping to his feet and with waveform lips drawing back rippling from knife-white teeth, "It doesn't matter if we are constantly under attack and can never defeat them, _it is the Lantern Waste!_ The very land itself is sacred."

Edmund was on his feet now, his patience gone. "It's land, Nicodemus!" he thundered. "It's land! If you stab it, it doesn't bleed. If you hurt it, it doesn't cry. It doesn't laugh and doesn't scream and doesn't have hopes and fears and loves! I will not pour out my blood and the blood of my friends and family and subjects to hold land over and above people!" He sighed and closed his eyes, mastering himself and dealing with the wolf as a human would. "I am sorry, Nicodemus, I should not have lost my temper. But I stand by my words – I will not buy the Lantern Waste with the freedom of the Islanders. When the crusade is over, we will return and finish this war." He smiled down at him, careful not to bare his teeth. "Today you have killed Varden – we should be celebrating, Marshal – not at each other's throats." He sat down and took the wolf's massive head in his hands. "You are the best general I have, Nicodemus," he said. "If I could spare you here, I would take you to the Islands. But, more than that, you are my friend."

"And you are mine, your majesty," said Nicodemus gravely, "yet . . ."

"You and Edmund have walked the same path, have you not, Marshal?" asked Elizabeth, almost surprised to hear her own voice and certainly surprised by the words she spoke. The wolf nodded, ashamed. "You should be brothers, not foes." She sighed. "I can see the merit in what you both say . . ." she began placatingly. Edmund interrupted her harshly.

"This does not require mediation, Lady Elizabeth," he snapped, "The position is clear."

"And I disagree," snarled Nicodemus, jerking his head out of Edmund's grasp. Edmund spread his hands almost apologetically.

"The Crown of Narnia hears your views, Marshal, and we have considered them," he said icily, "It does not please us, however, to change our mind on this matter – our orders stand." Nicodemus bowed his head very slowly.

"To hear is to obey, your majesty." His voice was a low, defeated growl in the base of his throat, a Beta wolf loosing to his Alpha, "I shall abandon the Lantern Waste." He raised his head and then lowered his shoulders smoothly – a lupine bow, Elizabeth assumed – and turned to leave the chamber. "If you will excuse me, I have troops to see to."

"Nicodemus . . ." began Elizabeth, reaching for him, but she did not know how to proceed, and he broke in on her words.

"No, Lady Elizabeth," he snapped, jaundiced eyes flashing, "I beg of you, do not speak to me. I have no desire to talk right now – neither of you understand, none of you humans do. The Lantern Waste occupies such a point in our lives, in the life of Narnia. It is true that I betrayed Narnia, but I will not do so again – not willingly. This is a heavy thing King Edmund asks of me – to let our sacred places fall."

"It is just a place," said Edmund, in a tone that suggested he was weary of the subject.

"Would you say the same about the Stone Table?" snarled Nicodemus, half-turning to look at the King. He faced Elizabeth as she spoke.

"He already has," she said softly, her heart bleeding for the poor wolf. She could understand what he was feeling – or, at least, imagined she could. Nowhere in the world was sacred to her – she had never really had anywhere that felt like home as a child, spending too-much time with nannies and childminders, and had lived in a succession of offices and hotels for much of her adult life. She could equate this wolf's reaction at having to abandon his own personal Mecca to things in her knowledge, if not her experience. Nicodemus's head drooped.

"Very well," he said, tears catching in his throat. "Aslan chose you, sire – and for that I will trust your judgment that these people's freedom is worth more than the Lantern Waste. But forgive me if I do not believe you." He turned and, with soft pads of his paws on the snow, withdrew from the room and out into the courtyard.

There was silence for a few seconds, Elizabeth staring forlornly at the place where the wolf had stood. And then Edmund stood and spoke dismissively. "Everyone's got their own point of view and the right to the wrong opinion," he said.

Elizabeth grabbed him by the upper arm, spinning him around before she realized what she'd done, blazing in his face, "Edmund, this isn't a game! It's about places that people love and revere!" She paused, letting go of his arm and lowering her voice. "People are going to feel very strongly about this."

"And people are going to be wrong," said Edmund flatly. "What is this obsession with protecting so-called sacred places? This isn't about places or times, this is about ideals and actions – this is about people. My family fled a war, were pushed by the government away from a _place_ to preserve us as _people_, so that England has a future even if Hitler bombs London flat. Destroy the Houses of Parliament and England endures, destroy her people and the white cliffs are _nothing_!" He clenched his fist in front of his face. "Why don't people _see_ this?"

"It is the human thing to do, Edmund!" He shook his head.

"No – Nicodemus is not human, I am." Elizabeth raised her hands in frustration.

"Oh, then it's what _people_ do – you know what I mean!" she snapped. Edmund smiled.

"Yes, I do, but you are wrong." Her face transfigured with annoyance as she remembered just how _young_ he was. He saw it and continued. "I have fought my brother over this crusade, I have fought Nicodemus – Aslan help me, Elizabeth, I _will_ fight you if I have to. _People_ may be thinking like that, but _humans_ are not – and Men rule this land. Narnia is not a man's country, but it is a country for a man to be King of – since King Frank, that has been the case. When humans sit at the Cair, Narnia flourishes. I have wrestled long and hard with this, Elizabeth." He closed his eyes and – for the first time – pain invaded his features. "Do you think it is _easy_ to make the choice I have? To give up lands where so much happened? But it is the best choice. It is hard, but it _is_ for the best." He paused and ran a hand through his dark hair. "The crusade is worth more than the Waste."

Elizabeth was subdued – pushed gently into submission by his conviction and self-belief. "There is more to this than your crusade," she said softly. The King's response was calm and measured; the self-satisfied smile of a man who knows he is right and can make you believe it.

"No, there isn't – there is just more to my crusade than you think."


	12. Medusa's Legacy

**Chapter Twelve : Medusa's Legacy**

"So, we're done?" asked Elizabeth in the pre-dawn light of the next morning. Edmund tied a small bag of treasure to the saddle; it was the down-payment for the fee to hire the Galmian ships. The balance was already moving downriver much more slowly. He swung himself onto his horse with practiced ease and nodded decisively.

"Yes – are you fit enough to ride?" She flexed her shoulder.

"Hylonome rubbed some salve on it – she says it's just bruised." Wincing, she clambered aboard her horse. "It'll get better faster if I keep it moving – the blood'll flow more." She turned to him. "But we're done? An argument with your commander and half a day with captains you are going to see in a week? Is that worth five days travel here and back?" Elizabeth came from an age of email and telephones, and such a thing was hard to comprehend.

Edmund spread his hands expansively and grinned. "And one dead Varden, don't forget that," he said, "That's worth a week of anyone's time." She put her hands on her hips.

"This whole thing was a counter ambush?" He nodded.

"Among other things," he explained, "I needed to visit the Beruna and Beaversdam encampments, and I knew Nicodemus would react as he did – it is better to hear such orders from my own mouth." He looked over at her, seeing her shiver slightly with something that was not just the dawn chill. "Happy to be leaving?"

"Yes, I hardly slept last night." She glanced up at the castle above her, quickly looking away but feeling its shadow on her. "There's . . . something about the Silver Citadel, Edmund – I can't put my finger on it."

"Oh, yes," said Edmund, "Jadis is still very much here – but not in the castle, she's in the Winter itself. You just feel it here more keenly, confronted with such a potent symbol of her power. In two weeks, the Winter will begin to turn – the worst of it will be over." He took in her distracted look, and flicked the neck of his quivering horse with the reins. "Come on – let's get moving." The two of them set off at a light trot, moving directly south through the freezing river – the horses were far more eager to enter it than they had been crossing the other way. Only after a mile or two, when the Citadel was hidden by folds of the land, did Elizabeth relax and turn to Edmund – who, himself, looked more at ease.

"So, what armies do we have? When will they gather, and where?" The King laughed.

"You are determined to not be Susan, are you not?" he chuckled. "The armies are gathering now – at Beaversdam – and will move downriver to the Cair in about two weeks, when the weather improves. It is a journey of a week or more for an army of that size – two and a half hundred swords or so; although there are technically fewer _swords_ than that in it."

"Why?" asked Elizabeth. Edmund shrugged.

"The Army of the West consists of forest animals and Dryads in the main. A few Dwarfs and a number of Fauns – and, of course, my lupine elite. The Lantern Waste – and the moorland of the north – are sparsely populated. Of course," he said with a chagrined smile, "that is where the war is being fought. The two most peaceful areas of Narnia are the south and east – which are, for that very reason, where everyone lives."

"Can you conquer the Lone Islands with less than three hundred men?" she asked uncertainly. He shrugged.

"I have no idea – but I don't have less than three hundred men, I have less than three hundred _soldiers_ of various sorts gathering at Beaversdam, and that number again – mostly from Peter's command – at Beruna." He paused. "With five hundred – by the grace of Aslan – it should be possible."

"With you as a commander, Edmund," smiled Elizabeth, "anything is possible." He laughed gently to hide his embarrassment.

"You've seen me kill wolves – formidable as they are, Minotaurs and sorcery are a tougher prospect."

"It's how Peter started," she said quietly, and then quickly asked, "Can't you . . . borrow some troops from the south or east, if they have such large populations?" Edmund shook his head.

"Technically, I already have – the Grand Army of the High King consists of the forces which are not tied to a particular region. It numbers some five hundreds. In the main, its troops are drawn from the south and east – Fauns, Dwarfs, Centaurs, a number of big cats, Talking Horses, a few Giants; the usual."

"The usual . . ." Elizabeth smiled. "And Peter has given you some troops from the Grand Army?" she asked. He nodded.

"Two hundred or so – which is more than he can really afford to spare, I think." He shrugged. "The Grand Army is currently fighting on the northern border – along with your friend Michael. Peter has the three and a half hundred troops of the Army of the North and the remaining three hundred of the Grand Army spread over a border fifty miles or more long – and foes who are the size of a house; I do not envy him _that_ adventure."

The two of them were moving between the towering rock-faces where they had been ambushed by Varden and had proven the death-ground for the wolfish commander. Elizabeth's horse picked its way delicately through the valley, stepping around the snow-covered ashes of the pyre the Centaurs had lit to burn the bodies of the wolves. Above her, the sky was crystal blue and blazed with cold sunshine, scoured clean of clouds by the winds that howled overhead.

"What will happen now Varden is dead?" she asked, "Will the wolves find a new leader?" Edmund nodded; Elizabeth sensed his understanding of pack politics was based on more than academic naturalism.

"Nature abhors a vacuum," he answered shortly. "There will be an Alpha-contest - a bloody, brutal affair when the Witch's wolves undertake it. Well," he grinned ruefully, touching his shoulder gingerly as if an old injury pained him, "no wolves' Alpha-contests are amicable, democratic debates - but the one to select Varden's successor will be particularly harsh. The new Alpha of the Western Wild traitors will be selected for his strength and ferocity - and to find a combination of _that _and military skill and wisdom is rare. The new Alpha is unlikely to be as powerful or clever as Varden or Maugrin were." He paused, and stood up in his stirrups, looking ahead of him. "This will make our task in the Western March merely difficult in the coming Spring rather than impossible." He smiled, happily. "This is probably a turning point in the whole war, actually – should it feel more significant?"

Before she could answer, Edmund swung his horse's head to the left – moving east between a couple of large rocks. Puzzled, she followed him, watching as the rocks opened out and flattened, leading into much the same terrain as the two of them had ridden through north of the River, but now the valley was on their right with the River roaring and crashing beneath them. He sensed her unspoken question.

"We'll journey back along the northern side of the River," he said shortly, "and cross at Beruna." He smiled. "You can see something of Narnia you haven't seen yet." She smiled politely back, but her mind was elsewhere.

The enormity of what she was involved in – a _war_ – was pressing down on her, helped in its gravity by the weight of the armor on her wounded shoulder. That blow had done more than strain her muscles, it had hammered a sense of her own mortality into her. As her horse moved lightly and easily through the rocky, barren, ice-frosted and snow-dusted terrain of the hills of the river valley, she looked over the northern moorlands, sweeping up and down and up again, up, up, in ascending slopes of heather and gorse and wide-open wilderness, and she felt naked and exposed.

What _was_ she doing here? She was a woman in her fourth decade of life, unmarried and childless and with a position in the world men twice her age envied. She still cut an impressive figure in the bikinis on the yachts at St. Tropez and Monaco each year. She broke careers and aspirations as easily as lobster claws and drowned them just as easily in melted butter. She was invulnerable, invincible, at the top of her game and only rising.

And yet . . . here she was, alone in a land whose geography she barely knew and being saved from death or worse by strangers she had picked up at the airport or mere boys who weren't even real. All that she was – clever, rich, beautiful, resourceful, fit and active – simply didn't cut it here. She couldn't use the blade at her hip, none of her skills were of any _use_. She got the impression she was being dragged through this world by her hosts as a favor, perhaps even a _patronizing_ favor – _let's have fun at the city-girl's expense._

Why was she even here? Something had dragged her here, and – in the absence of any other evidence – she began to suspect it simply had to be Aslan. Or God, depending on whether she believed Edmund or not. Her racing thoughts had taken on a momentum of their own, and she had skittered away from the place where she trusted the King implicitly and knew he was right. This wasn't a question now of something within her growing outwards, melting the ice on her heart – this was the frosty armor she had built up year after year after year – against her father, against the Church, against men, against _herself_ – encroaching once again on familiar territory and even making terrible gains.

Aslan as God? He might as well be – he's not _here_. He's not _real_ – he's a pretty little fairy-story to make us comfortable and keep people in line. Edmund and Peter and Oreius and the rest didn't _need_ him – _a King who has just won a great battle can establish himself without the help of a performing lion._ Something about those words nagged at her, but – resolutely now – she thrust the small, still voice that said _wait, stop and think_ aside and rampaged on. To her mind, he wasn't necessary – at which point, he didn't _exist_. A lie, to keep people where they are.

_Remember you'll be a mother one day, and a wife._ Maybe I want to be more than that, Sister? Maybe I don't want to be a mother – maybe I don't want to be the woman left behind and deserted, unsuccessful, forgotten and neglected in a dusty room hung with Rosaries and memories. Maybe I want to have the power to choose my path, to hurt others if I desire, to carve my place in the world. Maybe I want to be my _father_.

She stopped, dead, realizing where she had lead herself. Her breath caught in her chest and her heart beat hollow, winded as if she had been struck in the chest by an Ogre's club. She drew a halting, hitching breath, convulsively inhaling icy air. Tears that were not just pain at frozen lungs stung her eyes and – unbidden – they coursed from her eyes as words coursed from her lips.

"Oh, sweet Aslan, what have I become?" Her hands dropped the reins in realization, cradling her beautiful face as tears streaked down it, her shoulders heaving with sobs. The realization – the realization of where she _really_ was; trying to become the thing she hated and, so, trying to hate herself – slammed home. Suddenly, she heard the words of her psychiatrist as something more than a status-symbol proving she was normal by being screwed-up – she heard them as simple, stark truth.

Her horse, realizing she wasn't leading it any more, stopped and began to crop the thin heather on the side of the path. Edmund, hearing the jangle of tack and armor change pitch and her crying, turned back. "Elizabeth . . . ?"

"Don't look at me!" she howled. "Don't!" She sobbed anew, distraught with the embarrassment of having him see her like this, and then hating herself for that, and then realizing it was just all a big, damn _circle_. She pulled her face out of her hands and herself at least partially together as Edmund slipped off his horse and helped her off hers. She slumped to the ground in a sodden heap of silver and guilt. Struggling to find the words to articulate what she was feeling – the terrible sense of emptiness, of realization, of staring into an abyss and having it stare _back_ – she cried incomprehensible things at him.

He didn't put his hand on her shoulder and say "If you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't help". He didn't offer her a hankie and tell her to pull herself together. He didn't look down his nose at her and mouth, "Time of the month?" to his cronies. He simply drew his sword and lay it within easy reach of his hand, knelt beside her and put a strong arm around her shaking shoulders.

"I'm here," he said.

Fresh paroxysms of sobbing shook her body, tears cascading down into the snow and dripping off her nose. She sniffed and sniveled "I know," she wept, "I know – people like you always _were_. And I always pushed you all away, and I was so cruel and I . . ." She found the strength to stare into his gray eyes with her red-rimmed ones and tried to fling herself into them, hoping perhaps she could dash herself to pieces on them like a ship on rocks. "Have you . . . have you ever . . . suddenly . . . ?" She stopped, unable to articulate the maelstrom of realization and self-awareness that hit her; the guilt, the mirror that _something_ was holding in front of her and forcing her to look into. She was no worse than any of those she loved, but she hated herself more than anything else in the world at that very moment.

"Probably," said Edmund, "I think we all have." She buried her face in her hands again, tears freezing on the silver gauntlets.

"I'm so _alone_, Edmund," she sobbed, "I feel so alone." He gently brushed wandering hair off her brow, plastered there with tears and saliva.

He didn't repeat his earlier words, realizing that his physical presence counted for nothing. "You're in Narnia," Edmund said softly, "You're never alone."

"He's not here," she sobbed. If she had been more in control of herself and aware of anything more than her own guilt and self-loathing, she might have been surprised at what she was saying. As it was, both of them knew who _He_ was. Edmund sighed and slumped backwards – grief was infectious.

"No, he's not." He brushed a hand over his eyes. "And I don't know _why_ he's not – when you need him most." He sighed heavily. "Perhaps I'm supposed to stand in for him here, perhaps I'm supposed to help." He stared blankly at his trembling right hand through a mist of tears. "I can negotiate a treaty between families who have warred for generations, I can take a castle without spilling a drop of blood, but I can't even comfort a crying woman." He rested his head on clenched fists. "What sort of King am I?"

Elizabeth looked up at him, needing to comfort him if only to allay fresh feelings of guilt that were washing over her. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words caught in her throat as she saw – from her position low-down, under the low branches of the trees, half-overgrown and hidden – a horrifying sight.

It was a collection of statues, nothing more – worn granite covered with moss and – in the clean, crisp air of northern Narnia – lichens. Statues of a small party of animals – a squirrel family (one with a stone fork halfway to his stone mouth), two satyrs, a dwarf and a fox – seated around a stone table on which there were stone plates and a stone plum pudding.

"Oh, no, no, no . . ." she whimpered. It all came rushing back, like a nightmare you don't want to relive. From the book – Edmund and the Witch rushing along in the sleigh, the everlasting swish of the snow and the creaking of the reindeer's harness, the merriment, the joy . . .

The questions from the Witch, the honesty, the defiance, the bravery . . . the price. She closed her eyes, but the scene was burned on her memory. She had no framework to give a vision to the moment Jadis struck with her wand, turning the merry band to stone _forever_, but it was terrible enough.

Edmund did – he could remember what she had done, and what he had helped her to do, as clearly as it was yesterday. He looked, his eyes glued to the little collection of stone animals, his mouth slack and face gray He recalled perfectly that day a year and a half before; the blinding whiteness much like today, the flush of anger in the Witch's eyes, the drop of crimson blood on her lips as she bit them, the flash of terrible magic. The stinging pain in his cheek and the taste of his own blood as she struck him.

"No!" whimpered Elizabeth, half-crawling toward the little group, "It's not fair! It's not fair! They shouldn't have been left like this!" She turned to Edmund. "You won! Everyone else was turned back, why didn't Aslan help them?" Tears poured down her face, dripping onto the little baby squirrel's head and freezing there.

Edmund swallowed, his tears flowing freely down his face as guilt pressed on him like a suit of ill-fitting armor "I forgot to tell him about them," he said simply. That was it, wasn't it? He was so caught up with being the great King Edmund that anything before simply didn't matter. Aslan would handle _that_, _Eddie_ didn't need to be concerned with righting the wrongs he was responsible for. "If I had just remembered . . ."

"No," said Elizabeth with determination, "No. No – evil doesn't outlive its makers, not here. It might where I come from, but not here. I might be broken forever, but not here!" She looked up, seeing the little animals again. "It isn't _fair_!"

She slumped backwards, expecting to trip and fall over into the snow, but her back came into contact with a warm, strong presence. Rough golden light washed over the scene, washing the horrid whiteness away, as she turned to see what it was.

It was a lion.


	13. Ego Sum

**Part Two : Encounter**

**Chapter Thirteen : Ego Sum**

The howling wind appeared to have died down, and so there was complete and total silence save the trip-hammer pounding of her own heart and the moist snuffling she could hear in her nose in lieu of her own breath. She was on her knees, head bowed, and so the lion's wise, noble, ancient face towered above her. She was under no _mechanical_ illusion of the size of lions in her world – she had seen them in zoos and even remembered the rifle's mule-kick on her shoulder as she dropped them in the Serengeti on illegal safari-hunts.

Was it just her imagination, or did the ground vibrate when she remembered that, the oxygen in her lungs thrumming with sympathetic reverberations? She shivered and swallowed.

But she had never seen a _living_ lion this close – all she could see, through the mist of tears, were huge paws lying on the ground before her and the cataract of dark golden fur that washed down his chest and onto the snow-trampled ground. One of those paws could comfortably have crushed her to the ground without any difficulty, the great muscled toes that hid the velveted claws were dagger-sheaths wrapped in golden fur. Trickles of melt-water ran away from under his warm body and off her heart.

She wanted desperately for Edmund's voice to break the silence, but it did not. She couldn't bring herself to look up, to gaze into those eyes she knew would be worse mirrors than her own realizations She was dimly aware of a faint clatter of armor next to her as the King knelt beside her and buried his face in the warm fur of the lion's mane, his breath calming and becoming more regular.

"Peace be with you, my son," said the lion's voice. It was deep, heavy and golden, wilder than a man's. The warring temptations to look up and keep looking down were so great her neck muscles were aching as she felt Edmund pull back from the lion. "Elizabeth," said the lion in a growl so low it was almost a purr.

Elizabeth raised her head almost despite herself, the color drained from her face and her eyes gleaming with tears. She looked into the great golden eyes of the lion in front of her, vaguely aware of the sea of golden fur washing around them. A convulsive hitch of her lungs drew the sweet warmth of his breath into her and she felt her heart and breathing settle down into a racing rhythm that threatened to tear her apart. Her sinews and muscles quavered like water and then clenched in anticipation.

And then the mirror-realization of everything she was – and was _not_ – hit her again, worse than before. She looked into the lion's eyes and saw complete and terrible understanding there; he knew exactly what she had done, exactly what she had failed to do. She and he both knew that it was her own fault. Right then, at that single shattered moment in time, she realized that there were things you could not hide from – but you could hide from yourself.

And, despite the agony of having to see this, despite the fact she could stare at her life – not so very bad, not a murderer or a criminal, but just an ordinary person – and examine it like a flawed jewel, turning it in her hands, seeing the places were it was insufficient, seeing the cracks and the weaknesses, seeing where it would shatter; she knew she never wanted to look away. She realized she was not called to be an ordinary person; no-one was. Not being as bad as others was not enough – that she was called, like everyone, to be the pinnacle of Creation and to be perfect. And she knew, with just as clear a realization as that of her own sin, such a thing was impossible.

She should have hated herself. She _would_ have hated herself, but for the fact she was staring at the lion's eyes, and – in that single moment – the two of them were one. And in those eyes she saw nothing but love; not mere tolerance for her failings, not acceptance of her human weakness – those things were conspicuously absent – but simple, direct, uncomplicated _love_. There was nothing more than that – total knowledge of what she was and was not, and total love.

At that moment, she realized – quite easily, as a child might – what the most important thing in the world was. It was to attempt to be worthy of that love and to try to return it.

The woman she was a heartbeat before would have apologized, would have begged forgiveness, would have made lavish promises of perpetual virtue. But all she whispered, as she crashed down on her face and kissed the lion's paws, was "Help me."

"Always, little one," rumbled the voice above her. One of those paws lifted, the warm, furry back resting under her chin and a single claw catching in a link of mail and raising her inexorably to her feet. She stood as the lion did, looking up into the beautiful golden face above her. His rough tongue came out and licked her forehead, the warmth of his breath enveloping her again. She closed her eyes and swayed, and then opened them again as he spoke. "Do you understand now, Elizabeth?"

She nearly nodded, but stopped herself. "More than I did, Aslan." He seemed to smile, his eyes warm and - strangely – slightly sad. There was an unspoken moment between them, a moment when she knew that she could ask for that help – and that it would be granted. She could ask to go home, for the victory in the crusade, for knowledge, for the horrid sense of guilt to be taken away.

But she knew those would be hollow things – things she and others were _supposed_ to achieve on their own. Things that were not Aslan's province. She half-turned to the little group of mournful statues – seeing them made her burst into tears again, thinking of the lonely, endless nights they must have suffered – and simply sobbed, "It isn't fair!"

"Life isn't fair," rumbled Aslan, turning her back to face him. "If life were fair, would I treat with you so generously?" he continued with a growl. With a shock, she realized the truth in that – there was nothing to _make_ him die for Narnia, nothing to make him be generous and kind to her. This wasn't _justice_, this was mercy.

She would have offered anything then, simply to have him breathe on them. She would have died merely to make him consider it. But she knew that such trades were impossible – such a thing was not within her power, petition would change nothing, it was not given to her to do so. And yet . . .

"Please?" she prayed.

And, at that moment, she realized that – even if he didn't do as she asked – she could bear it. She had asked, she had asked for a specific thing, but knew that what she had been given was the serenity to accept it even if it could not be changed. Her prayer had changed nothing about the lion, nothing about the world – but it had changed her. Her tears dried a little as he brushed past her, her fingers tangling in his oceans of fur, and breathed on the little group.

She and Edmund stood and watched with uncomprehending joy as color licked over the group of animals – the vibrant red of the squirrels, the faded crimson of the aged fox's fur, the bright colors of Dwarfish finery, the ruddy flesh of the Satyrs. Steam began to rise from a plum pudding that was slowly turning to marbled black and purple, and gritty granite gave way to alabaster china with sky-blue designs.

The moment was broken as the fox – his look of terror fading to a look of complete incomprehension – dropped his wine glass for it to shatter like a bomb on the surface of the table and send red wine splashing over everyone there. The baby squirrel coughed and spluttered, squeaking, "Icky! Icky! _Icky!_" Elizabeth and Edmund broke into the nervous, tear-streaked laughter that follows draining emotion, the woman reaching forward with a napkin to pick pieces of glass off the table and the boy taking the fox by the hand. All around them, the little creatures moved and laughed and asked questions, offering them places at the table and glasses of wine and slices of roast meat and potatoes.

Someone stuck a paper crown on Elizabeth's head, someone else tried to put one on Edmund's and then everyone laughed as Edmund wagged his finger correctingly and tipped his golden circlet at them. The fox rose to his feet again, ready to try his speech once more. "Merry Christmas," came Aslan's voice from behind them.

But, when Elizabeth had spun around to see him, he was gone, leaving as the only evidence of his presence enormous footprints melted into the snow.


	14. Suffer the Little Children

**Chapter Fourteen : Suffer the Little Children**

When Elizabeth next looked upon Narnia – after wiping the tears from her eyes and leaving the little group to scamper through the forest home and safe a year and a half late – it was with changed eyes. Now she looked over the acres of heather and rock and howling winds and didn't see something that left her naked to sight and stripped of all protection, but rather something that was simply itself.

There was a purity to the north, a wild, stark, stripped distillation of living rock and water and flesh and leaf into the very elements of itself. A craggy complexity reverberated in the west, a land like its Duke – thoughtful, layered, introspective. The north was open, free, great and boundless – something you could walk through for days and not know completely, yet walk for years and still see nothing new.

Elizabeth wondered what the lands south of the River must be like – for she had seen little of them, and only the road that ran alongside that great blue nerve. A softer land, perhaps – rolling hills and beautiful downs, forests of blossom sliding into great peaks. The warmth of the dappled sun, acres of land where flowers bloomed and gentle creatures gamboled.

The east she had seen partially from the windows of the Cair, and it was a land of bustling activity, of enjoyment and merriment, of jumping and leaping and singing, of feasts and laughter and light.

But now she rode on a tired horse at the end of a long day through the empty cold silence of the northern moors – broken only by the whisper of wind on heather and the cry of the curlews and the wild, pinched prettiness of the lands that swept up to Ettinsmoor. It was almost with regret that she and Edmund came to the little golden circles of firelight that illuminated the bright tents and pavilions of the encampment on the southern side of the river. In the moonlight and starlight, the foaming crests of the ford breaking over the stones shone like a trail of diamonds leading to a pile of sapphires and emeralds and rubies gleaming on a green baize cloth.

The two of them had scarcely spoken on the ride back – there was little or nothing either of them wanted to say. Elizabeth's thoughts had perhaps moved in the direction of apologizing to Edmund for monopolizing Aslan, but then – feeling what still remained in her heart and what echoed around her in the very air and scent of the world – she realized she could no more monopolize Aslan from him than an eagle could monopolize the air by swimming in it.

She had remained contented – tired like her horse, and with the aches and weaknesses of her body more a sign of her mortality than ever and with her now finding that a joy – with the silence and the open purity of the north; a pale gold to the sunlight that drew her out of herself. Edmund had seemed – for the first time since leaving the Cair – to not be scanning the horizon for foes and threats and was simply quiet and thoughtful.

Their steeds splashed across the shallow river – freezing to the touch and causing them to shy back slightly and waking the two humans from their reveries – and entered the encampment. The sentries – heavy Centaurs in gleaming armor – challenged them and then allowed them passage.

Edmund immediately set of in search of his Captains and messengers, final preparations before the crusade got underway, and Elizabeth lead the horses to the stables. Then, with the sun completely gone from the sky and not even a suggestion of blue at the western rim of the world, she yawned her way to a tent, removed her armor, and snuggled her way into a warm bed next to sleeping creatures on either hand. She fell asleep immediately.

She awoke late the next morning and – after a laughing breakfast of rough-cut bacon sandwiches and brandy-laced coffee with a kick like a Minotaur taken standing around the fire with Dwarfs – she pulled herself back into her armor and went in search of fresh horses. King Edmund, she was told, would be leaving with her at mid-morning.

She lead the horses to the little Dwarf smithy, its presence revealed more by the chink-chink-chink-tap, chink-chink-chink-tap of horseshoes being fitted than anything else; it was built for the convenience of Dwarfs, and so scarcely came to her shoulder. It lurked out of sight behind a tent, and as she moved towards it a smile broke on her face as she saw the head and shoulders of the person being shoed.

"I'm going to have to get these re-lacquered when I'm next at the Cair," Hylonome was bemoaning, twisting her athletic torso back over her body to look at the hoof held in the stocks to which the Dwarf was attaching a glowing horseshoe. She tossed her head like a horse bothered with a fly as the rising smoke tickled her nostrils, her black and white streaked hair flicking in the dawn chill. "Part of me would love to be permanently stationed there – _they_ get golden horseshoes that don't melt your nailpolish."

"Hylonome!" exclaimed Elizabeth, rushing forward with her arms stretched out. The Centauride span her shoulders around to face her, her pretty face broadening into a grin.

"Elizabeth!" exclaimed Hylonome, remembering just in time not to try cantering over with one leg immobilized in the stocks. The Dwarf tapped in a final nail and then knocked them open with his hammer. She sprang free and trotted to the woman. "You're back! How did you like the Silver Citadel – scary, isn't it?" She crossed her arms over her chest. Elizabeth noticed that – in addition to her rough brown tunic – she was wearing a crimson and green sash. Hylonome noticed her attention and drummed her hooves in excitement. "Companion of the Order of the Table!" she whispered, scarcely able to contain herself, "It's not official yet, but Marshal Nicodemus says I can wear the sash until the Grand Master - that's King Edmund - bestows it properly in the Spring."

The Dwarf had come up to Elizabeth and she started and apologized, handing the reins to him. He lead the horses away to be shoed as Elizabeth smiled at the Centauride. "Well done you!" she exclaimed, "Do I curtsey or bow?" Hylonome blushed and laughed in embarrassment. "Is that for the latest mission? Convincing Varden Edmund and I would be there alone?" Hylonome nodded.

"'For services to the Crown of Narnia and the Marshal of the Lantern Waste'," she recited, grinning, "But, yes – that's the gallop I got it for." She lowered her head to Elizabeth's ear and lowered her voice, "They told me it was very dangerous, but I still wanted to do it. I'm quite the fastest messenger King Edmund has, you know."

Elizabeth smiled up at the Centauride as she drew back, nodding solemnly. "I'm sure you are," she said without irony. There was something so very innocent and fresh about Hylonome – something utterly young and youthful, yet without being childish or naive She was – Elizabeth considered – maybe the same age as Edmund in human terms and, in any other circumstance, that would have made her being anything other than a child impossible. But here, in the same world that produced Kings and Queens who were teenagers or less, Hylonome could be seriously considered what she was – which was simply a person with a youthful attitude and a joy for life that none could match.

"Hylonome . . ." began Elizabeth, unsure of how to start, and then – as the Centauride faced her with an inquisitive and guileless smile – realizing she had to begin with, "I'm sorry I snapped at you after the battle with the wolves – I was . . ." She was going to say 'scared', 'frightened', 'stressed' but then she realized those were lies. "I was just simply angry and I shouldn't have been." Hylonome shrugged her shoulders with a forgiving grace.

"That's alright," she whinnied. "You were probably scared as well," she said after a moment's thought, "Varden's wolves can be pretty scary. I was chased by ten of them as I was running to deliver the message – even I was a little nervous." A pause. "I'm sorry I pried into your life – it wasn't any of my business." Elizabeth shook her head.

"No, I needed to hear that - thank you." Hylonome still looked embarrassed.

"It's not my place to be Aslan," she neighed. "He's the only one who should judge." Elizabeth licked her lips and looked at the Centauride.

"Hylonome," she asked, "have you ever seen Aslan?" The Centauride nodded happily.

"Oh yes!" she exclaimed, rearing back slightly and pawing the air with her hooves. "It was after the Battle of Beruna, my daddy had taken me to the Cair to see the Coronation – it was ever so exciting. All the people there – General Oreius all in his armor – ever so pretty. Anyway, at the party afterward us . . . little ones – I was only a foal, at the time – went to play on the beach. It's so nice to run through the surf. We played for a bit – myself and a few others, some Faun-children – but after a while we got tired and most of them lay down to have a sleep. I didn't, I was strong even then, and my daddy said that if I was a very strong girl I might be able to fight for the Crown one day. So I stayed running in the surf until sundown."

"And then you saw Aslan?" asked Elizabeth.

"I met him," said Hylonome. It was clear there was an important distinction in the Centauride's mind she didn't want to labor. "He came up to me just as I was getting tired – he's ever so beautiful, Elizabeth. He called me by name and we played in the surf for a little while – we had such fun. And then he breathed on me, and told me he loved me, and I said I loved him, and he . . . just went." She paused and smiled at Elizabeth. "It was wonderful."

"That's it?" asked Elizabeth, "He just said he loved you and went?" The Centauride nodded, obviously thinking there was nothing more to be said.

"Yes," she said, "what did he say to you?" As she began to ask how she knew, she interrupted her. "I can tell, Elizabeth – it's not hard." The human ran her hand through her dark hair.

"He told me life wasn't fair, and asked me if I understood," she said guardedly. Something about the whole complexity of the issues weighed on her – the theological difficulties that had – in part – been responsible for her own retreat from the Church. Issues she had never grasped – doctrines and Incarnations and Dual Natures and Trinities and . . . "Do you understand, Hylonome?" she asked.

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed the Centauride, with perhaps her first hint of puzzlement at the human's differing mode of perception, "It's very simple indeed; he loves us, and would do anything for us." She paused and – as Elizabeth gave the impression that she expected more – added, "That's all that really matters. He made the world for us to live in because he loves us. He made us because he loves us. He comes when we need him most because he loves us. He'll never let us down because he loves us." Elizabeth still looked unsatisfied. "There _is_ more, of course," admitted Hylonome, "My daddy is a Centaur – obviously – and he is very wise indeed; he studies the stars and knows the nine names of Aslan and can read more languages than I can eat apples. King Edmund is _frighteningly_ clever – I don't understand half of what he says about Aslan and the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea. And, to be honest, I don't want to – I saw him, and he loves me, and I love him." A sweet, uncomplicated, simple smile – untarnished by theology or worry or denomination or anything else that might have been layered on it – shone down at Elizabeth. "That's enough for me."

Elizabeth's eyes beaded with tears and she reached forward and pressed her head into the Centauride's flank as she hugged her. "You," she said in a choking voice, "are the cleverest thing in Narnia." Above her, the bewildered Centauride shook her head.

"No," she said, "I'm just a messenger." Elizabeth felt the Centauride's body stiffen into attention and the reverberation as her fist hit her chest. "Your majesty," she said formally.

"At ease, Companion," said Edmund. Hylonome beamed and relaxed. "Horses ready, Elizabeth?" She nodded, accepting the reins from the Dwarf.

"May Aslan go with you to the Lone Islands, your majesty," said Hylonome, "Are there any messages you would like taking to the Lantern Waste?"

"Plenty," said Edmund swinging himself into the saddle, "but you're not taking them."

The sight of the Centauride's face falling was heart-rending, and Elizabeth looked with shock at Edmund that he could be so cruel. "Sire . . ?" the girl asked, uncomprehending. Edmund grinned.

"I need you with me in the Islands, Companion," the King smiled, "I've got no other messengers I can trust with something that delicate; and you're the best scout I have. You ride with us back to the Cair." The Centauride tried in vain to make some sort of noise of appreciation and thanks, but nothing came out of her blushing throat.

Elizabeth squeezed her hand and mounted her own steed. "I thought you weren't taking any Centaurs to the Lone Islands, Edmund?" she asked. _Well, there's no harm in making the girl even prouder than she is_, she reasoned. Edmund kicked his mount into a walk and answered her.

"Just Hylonome – most of them aren't any good on the ships. Say, Hylonome!" he called back over his shoulder at the static Centauride. She started and broke into a trot to catch up with the two of them. "Have you ever been on a sea voyage?" The Centaur girl shook her head; it was not hard to read the emotions that said clear as day _Please don't choose someone else, I can learn, I'll be fine_. Edmund nodded, "Didn't think so – it'll be a good experience for you." He kicked his mount into a gallop and raced – followed by the others – for the Cair.


	15. The Monarch in Residence

**Chapter Fifteen : The Monarch-In-Residence**

It was just after dawn the next morning when they arrived at the eastern shore of Narnia, drinking in the sight of the great castle of Cair Paravel rising in unbroken towers and walls from the bedrock of the land. Edmund - used to days and weeks and months spent away from it – viewed it as a comforting sight of home, the end of his journey and labors; at least for a time.

But to Elizabeth and Hylonome – both of whom had been there only once before – the Cair represented an adventure, or at the very least a gateway to one. Elizabeth had been in Narnia for less than two weeks, Hylonome for all her life – yet nether of them had ventured further east than this shoreline. All that was about to change in the near future – and this towering castle was the beginning of that. Faced with this prospect, neither of them – neither the seasoned warrior or the hard-bitten traveler – were anything other than excited.

Six pairs of hooves clattered over the drawbridge and then – as they reached the lowered portcullis – the two riders dismounted. The guards saluted and rang the bell for the iron grille to be lifted and – as it was – horses, riders and the Centauride marched through into the gatehouse tunnel.

There, ostlers hastened to them to take care of the horses – Hylonome held up her hoof for a stone to be removed – and then the three of them walked through the archway in front of them into the great courtyard of Cair Paravel, the tall white stone walls towering above them on each side, spires and columns rising above that to the pinnacles crowned with flags. From the southern- and easternmost towers, flags displaying a golden lion rampant on a red field flew.

"Susan and Lucy are home," murmured Edmund, almost to himself and certainly in puzzlement. He lead the way forward.

His bewilderment did not decrease as he did so, for they moved between lounging ranks of big cats - panthers, leopards, tigers - that dotted the ancient stone flags. The courtyard was shielded from the worst of the snow and what little had fallen had been swept away by lashing tails or melted by warm, furry bodies. Edmund moved past a dozing black creature, its tail twitching like a broken worm. As his boots scraped on the stone, it opened a single green eye and then - moving languorously slowly - raised its head and gave a prodigious yawn.

"Eauh, look!" the cat said in a voice that could have carved diamond, "it's King Edmund, what! _Halleau_ your majesty." He licked the back of his paw and slid it over his head and ears. From around him, various sarcastic, plummy, precise, Haw-Haw voices made high-pitched noises of recognition and purrs of friendship.

"Southerners," explained Edmund to Elizabeth, and she simply had to stifle a laugh. "Although what they are doing here is beyond me."

Elizabeth was helped in stifling her laugh as Hylonome reached down and grabbed her arm. "Oh, my gosh!" she exclaimed in a suppressed whisper, "It's him!" There was certainly no doubt who _he_ was – the massive chestnut Centaur-stallion standing in the center of the courtyard was clearly recognizable as General Oreius. "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" panted the Centauride, "Isn't he dreamy?"

"Hylonome," said Elizabeth reasonably, "breathe." She tried, and almost succeeded.

It was fortunate, perhaps, for the Companion of the Order of the Table her Grand Master had moved through the courtyard by this stage and could not hear her. Elizabeth and Hylonome followed, careful not to tread on twitching tails and sleeping paws, and eventually reached the two men standing in the center The General looked exasperated and tired, his coat less-glossy than it should be, as he read a scroll held in his massive hands. "Trouble?" asked Edmund. The Centaur rolled his eyes at him.

"Not exactly, your majesty," said Oreius. He read the scroll again and raised his voice. "Second platoon of the Queen's Light Cats?" he cried without much hope. There was silence for a second. "Second platoon?"

"Eauh, yes, why - that's _us_!" came a languid voice. Its owner stretched elegantly to her feet. "Here we are - yoo-hoo!" She lashed her tail a little to make herself more obvious, although her brindled orange and black fur made that unnecessary. Oreius stared at her with the born-soldier's distaste for the draft. "I mean, present and correct." She paused. "_Sah!_" She raised her paw to her whiskered brow and swept it sideways in a mocking salute. Oreius sighed.

"Hylonome," said Edmund, turning to the Centauride, "I want you to stay here and help General Oreius with whatever he needs. General Oreius." The Centaur saluted, "I need Companion Hylonome in scout armor and with blades for the Lone Island crusade." The General bowed.

"It shall be as you order, Sire." He ran his deep-set eyes over his kinswoman. "I shall have the Dwarfs begin manufacturing it immediately – it would not do to drag down such a swift filly with munition-grade armor" He gave the salute of Knights of the Table to Hylonome. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Companion."

Hylonome was tongue-tied, reddening from the waist up and tying little knots in the trailing ends of her sash. Elizabeth gently kicked her ankle. "Oh!" she gasped, "Yes. The pleasure is all mine, Sir." She just managed not to giggle like a schoolgirl or faint.

"General," asked Edmund, seeing that his messenger needed attention diverted from her, "the cats?" The Centaur nodded.

"The Monarch-in-Residence awaits your pleasure, your majesty. She has bidden me allow her to explain it." Edmund and Elizabeth gave bows that encompassed both the Centaurs and then withdrew. The General wearily looked at the scroll in his hand. "Duchess' Own Household Felines?" he asked bleakly as Edmund and Elizabeth – the woman waving goodbye to the excited Centauride – mounted the stairs on the far side of the courtyard and crossed under the arch into the great hall of the Cair.

The room was huge, with a vaulted roof of ivory far above, the southern wall hung with tapestries and the west draped with an iridescent pageant of peacock feathers; a thousand eyes trying unsuccessfully to out-stare the one, single glowing orb that was rising over the sea, lancing through the great glass doors - now standing open - in the eastern wall. The floor underneath was a marble mosaic of geometric patterns, crossing and weaving and curving with lines so complex they seemed to move and shift of their own accord. As Edmund and Elizabeth moved through the vaulted archways that made up the northern wall, a riot of color and noise met their eyes - Fauns and Dwarfs were scampering around, weapons and armor in their hands. Lovely slender women with larch-green and willow-yellow skin and hair slid through the crowd like verdant shadows. The crashing noise of the ocean rolled over everything and the smell of salt spray, armor-oil and perfume mingled together in billowing waves.

In contrast to the bustle and hustle on the floor of the chamber, there was peace and silence on the raised dais at the western end. There, four ivory and marble thrones stood solid and immobile, carved from the very same rock as the plinth they stood on. Seated in one of them - casually but elegantly, not lounging - was quite the most beautiful woman Elizabeth had ever seen. As the noise and movement in the hall ceased and every head was bared and every knee was bent to Edmund, the woman stood - revealing herself to stand an inch or so taller than Elizabeth and now, standing on the dais, towering over her.

Edmund walked easily through the lane that opened in the sea of various creatures standing on the floor, Elizabeth in his wake, and dropped to one knee before the dais. Elizabeth followed suit beside him, very aware of the scratches and dirt on her armor "Your majesty," he said regally, "I had no idea you were in residence." The girl on the dais - for Elizabeth could see that she was no older than a year or two Edmund's senior - smiled down at them.

"Your majesty is not uninformed," she said in a voice as lovely as her face, "Aslan appeared to myself and Queen Lucy, telling us of the High King's war against the Giants and your travels to the Lantern Waste - and the proposed crusade to the Lone Islands. We cut short our wintering in Archenland; there should be a Monarch-in-Residence." She stepped off the dais and raised Edmund to his feet, something shifting in her voice. "It's _so_ good to see you, Ed," she whispered, "They're talking all about troops and things - I don't have the _first idea_!" She led them back up onto the dais, clicking her fingers for a chair. A Faun ran off to fetch one as the Queen turned to the older woman. "You must be Lady Elizabeth - you are right welcome to Cair Paravel. I am Queen Susan of the Horn."

_I will _not_ make a joke, I will _not_ make a joke,_ thought Elizabeth desperately, using her curtsey as cover to examine Susan at closer range. She was taller than her, and far more slender - the figure of a willowy girl on the verge of womanhood rather than the sweeping curves of a mature adult. But her shoulders - encased in gilded armor - were broad and the muscles of her partially-naked arms sinewy and taut. She remembered Susan was a swimmer and an archer - disciplines that required athleticism and terrible, deceptive strength. She was wearing armor that echoed the style of the suit Elizabeth was wearing, but where Queen Swanwhite's protection was white leather and silvered-steel, Susan's was black silk and beaten gold - as fine and thin as foil and lighter than a shadow. This was for display, not protection – a single blow would fold it like deranged origami. Carefully, Susan was avoiding standing in the shadow cast by her brother and – as the sunlight struck her full-on – she blazed like molten gold, the reflections blinding. Her black hair cascaded to her waist in flowing waterfalls of melted jet and her emerald eyes sparkled in her flawless face like exotic stars. A sudden longing opened in Elizabeth; _this_ was beauty that wars were fought over, this was the face that might launch a thousand or more ships and for whom hundreds of Knights would die. There was no jealousy - something of Narnia had sponged that away from her - but there was simply regret that she might have once been jealous of this girl's gifts. _That was before Aslan,_ she realized with a start.

"I thank you, Queen Susan." Elizabeth found her voice as she sat in the chair the Faun had provided. "I thank you for your hospitality – and for that of the High King and King Edmund." Susan smiled, an event that lit the room.

"He's dragged you all over the Lantern Waste," she said, looking at her brother rather reproachfully. "You would have been more comfortable here." Elizabeth smiled.

"It was . . . rewarding," she said simply, glancing at Edmund. Queen Susan laughed and shook her head slightly, and then turned to the Faun and dismissed him. He bowed and withdrew.

"Even so, you must be tired and weary," she said with the air of a perfect hostess. She faced Edmund. "As must you, Ed – you never stop."

True to form, Edmund simply asked a question. "Su, what is half your army doing in the courtyard?" She looked a little put-out.

"It's not half," she said precisely, "it's about a quarter – one hundred or so cats." Her beautiful mouth turned down at the corners. "Oreius said that you were planning to abandon the Lantern Waste with only a token defense left there!" She leaned forward conspiratorially. "You can't just do that, Eddie," she whispered, "that land is very important." Elizabeth coughed.

"I have had this conversation," said Edmund dryly.

"Good," said Susan cheerfully, "Then you'll agree with me – those one hundred soldiers will go west to strengthen your defense" Edmund smiled broadly, and then his face drew into confusion.

"Can you afford to loose such a number from your defenses?" he asked. Susan nodded.

"I am told I can," she said finally, in a voice that brooked no refusal. "I am told that a . . ." she searched for the words, "_yeoman militia_ will be formed from able-bodied civilians." Edmund did not look entirely convinced that such a thing were entirely possible or safe, but – in the absence of the High King – Susan was Monarch-in-Residence, and these were her troops and lands.

"Your Marshal has organized this, your majesty?" asked Elizabeth into the resulting silence. The stunning girl looked shocked.

"Oh, no, Lady Elizabeth – my Marshal doesn't get involved with such things as that." There was a look of genuine distaste for war on Susan's beautiful face; not merely a dislike of it as inconvenient or ugly, but something that was simply hideous and horrible and left men dead and women widowed and orphaned. "I have Captains who keep us both far from such things."

"Any news from Peter, or Michael?" asked Edmund. Susan shook her head.

"Questions over lunch," she said, "and lunch after a bath and a rest." Edmund made to speak. "No arguments, Ed – you two have been in the saddle for a week or more, the messengers say you were ambushed by wolves and that Varden is dead. If you are half as battered as your armor is, you need a rest. The Lone Islands aren't going anywhere, and _you're_ not going anywhere without an army, and that's not here yet. So," she said briskly, "bath, rest, lunch – _then_ questions." Edmund opened his mouth to protest, realized it was useless and that she was right, and smiled indulgently and deferentially at his sister.

"As you wish, your majesty."


	16. Sense and Sensuality

**Chapter Sixteen : Sense and Sensuality**

Queen Susan was as good as her word and better than her voice – if such a thing were possible. Within a few minutes, Elizabeth found herself swept away from Edmund by a tide of Fauns, divested of armor by a wave of Naiads and lying in a room of gilded marble and polished copper piping, seated inside an inverted ziggurat of stone steps that was filled with steaming and foaming water.

The air was thick and heavy with exotic scents – pine and lavender and nutmeg and blossom; warm scents of the south – and a miasma of steam hung in the air, condensing on the cold walls and fittings into drips and droplets that slunk down into the scalding bath with the jerky insolence of a waterclock. This was – said the succession of Fauns who brought great pitchers of steaming water and bunches of herbs and slabs of soft, creamy, scented soap to her – Queen Susan's private bath chamber, built after her majesty had visited Calormen the year before. When the Lady Elizabeth was _quite_ finished – and a River-Nymph or three knelt at the water's edge, offering glasses of iced wine and sugary sweetmeats in case she grew faint while finishing – the Queen's personal physician would be more than pleased to give her a massage and see to her bruised shoulder.

_And my bruised everything else_, Elizabeth thought to herself as she just lay back in the water and looked down at her mottled body. There was a pleasing and pleasant hard- and leanness to it; the sculpted muscles of her cheerleading days were making a definite return, and there was almost – she dared fancy – a reversal of some of the things that happened to the body of a woman in the fourth decade of her life. Horse-riding and fighting wolves was a better workout than celebrity fat-busting DVDs, and a succession of days bounded not by deadlines and diets, but rather by the sun and food cooked on an open fire, more relaxing and cleansing than any number of sauna-sessions. She had to admit, as she wriggled and stretched in the hot water and felt kinks melt away and sore joints relax, she looked _good_.

Provided she ignored the bruises, that was – she was plastered with them. Her left shoulder – as much as she could see – was a blue-black mass extending halfway down her chest. Her legs were mottled with a hundred marks and – she noticed with distaste – dried blood and sweat sluiced off her as she gently scrubbed with the natural sponge, wincing at the influx of sensation.

As a Naiad knelt behind her and massaged her hair clean, a foamy lather dripping down her face and forcing her to close her eyes, she drifted away, her mind wandering. There was the clack of the Fauns' hooves on the floor, the splashing of the water, the sensation of watery hands washing her hair and the ever-present sound of cascading waterfalls as the water-bearers scooped the cooling water out of the bath and replaced it with fresh, drawn from some invisible copper heater in another room.

But, right then, the consideration that the water came from _anywhere_ was alien to her – this was a simple world of sensations, something of the here and now. It was, she recognized with the small rational part of her mind, something utterly indulgent – something unnecessary. A tin bath and a few gallons of hot water would have suited her fine. This pampering wasn't really necessary – although it was delightful. It was, she reflected, something she could see Susan relishing – and Narnia even coming to _expect_ Susan to relish. Her thoughts turned to the younger woman – scarcely more than a girl, really – and wondered if she might not be forced, by her own beauty, into a role she did not want. There was a pleasing core of sense to Susan – she was intelligent and smart and sensible – but she was simply too beautiful for her own good. She remembered the few times Edmund had spoken of his sister – as a mediator and the voice of reason in the family. Would the native Narnians, delighting in their warlike High King and his diplomat brother, neglect the skills of their fair Queen in favor of simply enjoying her beauty? And might she, herself, eventually come to believe that was the most important thing about her?

She was at least half-asleep by now, lulled into a torpor by the rhythmic sounds and the warmth of the water. Her mind was drifting on the surface of her knowledge as her limbs were on the surface of the water, trying to make sense of her sensations with the logic of a dream. The Agean sounds of the bath and the memories of the outlines of the Fauns and Naiads behind her eyes made her think of the Greek myths she had read, remembering the beauties in those. The exotic girl-with-green-eyes coming and capturing the heart of a prince or a kingdom or a god.

And was beauty in truth always innocent? Was Helen, perhaps, less guileless than Homer would have had his audience believe? Did Rhea Silva _welcome_ the golden shower of Mars into her lap, a willing participant in the treachery? Perhaps even Roxana's dancing was less self-absorbed than calculating; certainly, Cleitus the Black had thought so. Was there a wider issue here history had forgotten as it made the beautiful woman nothing more than that?

She felt her mind rise through clear water, surfacing like Aphrodite as the Naiad rinsed her hair clean of soap and slicked it back from her forehead. She could have stayed in the water longer – she _would_ have stayed in the water longer – but something in her was rebelling from this luxury, this indolence. As in most former Catholic-schoolgirls there was a deeply buried – but thick – strata of Puritanism in the geology of her personality, deposited by candle-lit vigils and fasts and compacted and covered by feasts and golden chalices and jeweled candlesticks. It did not take a tectonic shift to expose this layer, the resulting tremors leading to a landslide of guilt.

It surprised her, as she stood up, rising like Artemis bathing with her Nymphs, water running off her naked body, she still hated the Church quite so much. As the Fauns – fearful, perhaps, of Actaeon's punishment – modestly averted their eyes, one of the Naiads flowed to her with an enormous white towel and wrapped it around her. Drying herself off, she watched in puzzlement as the Fauns withdrew – she was so far from herself such a thing as body modesty didn't even register on her mind.

The Naiads lead her towards a small doorway she had not noticed before, into a warm, comforting room finished like the bathroom. A single stone bier rose from the floor, a thick pad of white fur on the surface, and a tall Centaur with a flowing white beard stood patiently by. Elizabeth dropped the towel and spread herself out on the slab, closing her eyes as terribly strong hands went to work on her joints and muscles.

She could feel each individual bone unlocking and every muscle relaxing as the Centaur worked on them, the tensions in them melting to water and then simply dripping away. Her mind chewed over her issues with the luxury she was feeling, something justifying the current sensation as medicinal and necessary. She was not surprised at her strong reactions to the indulgence, but rather was surprised by the new self-awareness that allowed her to pin-point the source of her dissatisfaction. As her arms were spread and joints gently stretched cruciform she wondered if this was the most blasphemous parody she could manage. But within her new-found clarity, there was a realization that it was hypocrisy – not pleasure – that was the source of her rejection. She thought she had found the core of her worldview, and settled down into enjoying the massage – marred only by the slightest twinge she might not understand everything.

Every time a bit of her was relaxed she found she simply couldn't tense it again – her hands were gone to her, her arms, her shoulders, the nape of her neck, her spine and hips. As her thighs lost sensation, she realized most of her was simply asleep at this point.

And, thought her mind as it willingly followed suit, it would be silly to be awake when nothing else was.

oOo

Elizabeth awoke endless hours later – she assumed it was hours, given the tone of the sky outside – to a warm chuckle she thought she recognized. Blearily, she raised her head to see Edmund standing in the doorway beside a Dryad carrying a dress in silk and cloth of gold and a mantle of velvet and fur over one arm. There was a look of very faint disapproval on the tree-girl's leafy face as Elizabeth grasped the fur-blanket beneath her to her chest and rolled over, wrapping herself as best she could. "Edmund?" she asked, pushing back her hair with arms that felt like new. The discoloration of her shoulder had faded to a merely cosmetic darkening. "What's for lunch?"

"The eggs are still in the chickens and the milk's still in the cows," said Edmund without a hint of reproach. "You slept right through today's." He gestured for the Dryad to lay out her clothes and she gasped with embarrassment. "Don't worry – Su and I ate alone; it was nice to catch up without a lot of pomp and fuss." He gestured at the gorgeous clothes – easily the equal of those she had worn before at the Cair – and said, "Queen Susan picked these out for you and awaits us both for high supper at sundown on the Sea-Terrace." He bowed and turned away, walking into the bathroom where he stood with his back to her but with multiple reflective surfaces in front of him as she jumped off the bier and began to dress with the help of the Dryad.

The tree-girl worked expertly, tying and buttoning quickly with vine-like fingers and managing to keep her own virtually-nude body between Elizabeth and the mirrors more often than not. Elizabeth's torso flexed impressively against the corset as the Dryad pulled the laces tight with a knee in the small of her back.

"Did you manage to talk to her about the armies?" she asked Edmund as the Dryad fussed over a few final details. "Thank you," she said with a smile, and the Dryad bowed and – now she was dressed – withdrew. Edmund shook his head and spoke.

"Sweet Lion, no – I would never trouble Susan with such things. I spoke with General Oreius and the Captains; no word from Peter or Michael as yet. Lucy – or, rather, I suspect, Tumnus – has also managed to squeeze her armies and found one-hundred warriors whom she has detailed to defend the Lantern Waste for the duration of the crusade." There was perhaps a hint of annoyance that no-one saw it quite the way he did. "They will be there within the next week or so – by the second-week of Wildsnow . . ." His voice trailed off as she walked into his line of sight – she was so far from herself she had not even bothered to glance in a mirror.

"Wildsnow?" she asked, smoothing down the dress and giving a little twirl. He gave an affirmative and appreciative nod, gray eyes running over her curves so quickly she wanted to pretend his motivations were purely pure.

"The first month of the Narnian year, which begins today," he explained. He grinned. "Happy new year." It was pretty obvious the Narnians did not make a big deal of this date in their calendars by the tone of Edmund's voice. "Two weeks after _that_ – so around about the twentieth – my crusade armies should be gathered. I hope to have Galmian ships in port by then and to set off for the Lone Islands by the end of Wildsnow or the beginning of Frostmelt at the latest." He looked her up and down and inclined his head deferentially. "Shall we go, my lady?" he asked, offering his arm.

"Indeed, your majesty," she smiled with mock-gravity, linking her arm through his. The two of them walked out of the bathroom and along the corridors and down the stairways of the Cair. It was, reflected Elizabeth, quite amazing what a difference getting Edmund out of armor made. Now he was dressed in rich finery such as she had never seen him wear before – the gray velvet that seemed to be his signature color, but with rich golden embroidery that dazzled the eye. He was wearing ancient silver and sapphire jewelery with snowflake designs alongside more homely amber work. He still wore his amber-encrusted sword and his thin golden circlet but – other than that – he was as divorced as could be from the fell warrior in heavy armor. There was a relaxed quality to his answers that had been entirely lacking in his arrangements while galloping around Narnia; here was the other side to him, the disarming diplomat, the charming gentleman – or perhaps, simply enough, the young boy relaxing at the end of a long day. She wondered, briefly, just what was cause and what was effect – had he stepped out of the armor because he was no longer warmongering? Did Susan's gentle influence have anything to do with it – calming him and telling him he did not need to live his life at such a breakneck pace?

Her reveries were cut short as a voice echoed from behind them, causing her to turn and look back up the stairs they had just descended. "Hello Edmund!" The words came from a young girl, with hair the color of golden honey and eyes like a chocolate sundae, who was fairly bouncing down the stairs. Elizabeth would put her age at maybe a year younger than Edmund's. She landed on the stone flags in faux-huntsman's attire; leather worked and tooled with figures of dancing Fauns and waving dryads. A short bow was slung over one shoulder and a little leather cap with a feather in it was perched on her head. Edmund spun around.

"Lucy!" he cried, picking her up and swinging her round. "A delight to see you!" He dropped her back to the floor and swept his hand towards the older woman. "May I present Lady Elizabeth, recently arrived from beyond the wardrobe door?" Queen Lucy curtseyed.

"Welcome to Narnia," she smiled warmly. There was a slightly awkward pause - perhaps the youngest Queen was waiting for the older woman to answer her or return the favor of the greeting. But Elizabeth - shocked into silence by the appearance of the girl who had been here self-identifier in Narnia at that age, and the realization this caramel-haired firecracker wasn't what she had grown up to be (or, indeed, ever _was_) - remained mute for a telling second. Lucy spun back to face Edmund, her smile unwavering, totally genuine and not even slightly put-out.

"Can't stop - I've got to go inspect my armies," she chattered excitedly. She made to move off, throwing, "I'll be back for dinner!" over her shoulder, but Edmund caught her by the arm.

"Whoa, little sister!" he cried, dragging her back. "What do you mean, 'inspect your armies'? Isn't that a job for whoever is going with them?" Lucy beamed. "Oh, no - no-no-no-no-no! Your Fauns and Dryads are more than welcome in the defense of Lantern Waste, but you're not going." Lucy did not pout, but simply looked at her brother with an expression that said she knew she had already won. Edmund carried on, seemingly not noticing. "Peter would never allow it, Lu."

"Peter's not _here_," she grinned, "And you _know_ that I don't have any commanders I can send on a mission like this - you and Peter secon, scheneded . . . _borrowed_ them all. I have one Captain who is accomplished enough to command the standing armies I shall leave in the East," Edmund was sure he could hear Tumnus' voice in those words, "and I shall leave dear Mr. Tumnus in charge." She looked up at Elizabeth. "He's very clever, you know," she explained.

Edmund narrowed his eyes, he had one card left to play. "Susan is Monarch-in-Residence at the Cair - she is the eldest."

Lucy grinned. _Trumped!_ "Susan said I could go," she cried joyously, "She said that at least one of us needed to be there." Edmund realized that he had lost and shook his head, grinning in a defeat he didn't really mind.

"Very well, go with my blessing." He put his hand on her head and ruffled the golden curls. Her toothy-grin widened impossibly and she bobbed up and down briefly, darting away singing joyfully. "And listen to Nicodemus!" yelled Edmund after her. The door banged shut behind her and her scampering footsteps could be heard rattling down the stairs as Edmund pinched the bridge of his nose. "Susan . . . _let her_?" he asked quietly of himself.

"Will she be alright?" asked Elizabeth doubtfully, her mind full of the vision of the youngest of the Pevensie siblings – a firecracker in a gunpowder factory, but with entire fire-watches of wolves with buckets of water. Edmund nodded, grudgingly admitting it.

"Lucy is excitable, headstrong, willful, and would stick her head in a hornets' nest if she hadn't done it before," he said resignedly, leading Elizabeth forward again. "But, she is also clever and brave and knows her own limitations – she will listen to Nicodemus and my captains. She will also be in the middle of the most dangerous area of Narnia, and so in addition to her own bodyguards I should order half of the Lantern Waste elite to remain behind with her as their charge." He sighed. "Frankly, Elizabeth, Susan is right – one of us does need to be there." He grinned ruefully. "It is, after all, the _Lantern Waste_."

Elizabeth's laughter was cut short by a gasp of amazement as Edmund pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs and the Sea-Terrace – set for an evening dining at Queen Susan's pleasure – was revealed before her.


	17. Dining at the Queen's Pleasure

**Chapter Seventeen : Dining at the Queen's Pleasure**

The Sea-Terrace was the balcony – although to call it merely a balcony would have been like calling Queen Susan _attractive_; it defined the concept by excess of itself – that thrust out from the great eastern door of the Cair, arching over the sea-cliff and facing the rising sun. Its floor was intricately inlayed marble and the curving balustrade that spread in a great arching bow out over the sea was made of the same material, complexly carved. The sun had just set on the opposite side of Cair Paravel and the blush of ruddy blue deepening to black on the western side was invisible; the sky arching like a great bowl above the castle was black velvet flecked with blinking diamonds. The half-moon had just risen and was casting a pale and wan blue-white light on the world below, the white-tops of the breakers just visible below the crashing noise as they broke on the rocks of the coast.

It was a cloudless night – the snow had shaken itself to death during the day – and so it was cold, but burning charcoal braziers scattered around the terrace created pools of warmth and chill. From the bunches of lavender and rose-water soaked applewood chips flung on the charcoal aromatic smoke rose and billowed. On the walls above, great blocks of limestone were resting against flaming furnaces, glowing and crackling with actinic light as they were heated, pools of limelight being reflected down onto the scene below by great convex silver mirrors. Higher still, on balconies further up – doubtless wrapped in warm scarves and mufflers and cloaks – Fauns or Dwarfs or something else plucked at strings and blew into pipes, dexterous fingers making eerie music that drifted down the walls of the castle, as if the very stars themselves were singing; cold and clear and new and bright.

At one end of the terrace, a table was set – a great long table, wide and improbably tall. There were, so far as Elizabeth could tell, eight places around the table, but two of them had no chairs. Of the other six, five of them were what she might have called "normal" chairs – although they were carved with a skill and wealth of detail that would have made Chippendale weep into his sawdust – but stood on high platforms, raising them to a height appropriate for the table. The final chair was not really a chair at all, rather a huge flat surface on a level with the table strewn with cushions.

All this Elizabeth took in in an instant, for her attention was drawn to the reason for all this extravagance – the hostess and her guests. Queen Susan was there and – for a second – she monopolized Elizabeth's attention so much that she seemed to forget everything but her. If she had thought she was beautiful before, she had been mistaken – now she was out of armor the flowing lines of her dress allowed her to be what she was rather than being straight-jacketed into something else. She was sharing a joke with Hylonome and, as she laughed, everything else in Elizabeth's line of sight seemed to simply fade and become tawdry. Gradually, the sensation passed, but it did not diminish Susan's beauty – rather, the rest of the scene became all the more beautiful because of it.

Standing next to the Queen was Hylonome – wearing a silken tunic and her beloved sash. As Susan laughed, the Centauride drummed her feet in mirth and Elizabeth noticed the gleaming sparkle of golden shoes and lacquered hooves. Behind the two of them, General Oreius – bare-chested except for a sash like Hylonome's but adorned with a golden fringe – was speaking with a great brindled shape of orange and black that crouched – amorphous in the half-light and half-hidden behind a brazier – on the ground, its tail twitching.

Edmund stepped forward, greeting his sister and the Centauride. Both curtseyed as Elizabeth did the same and the King bowed. Queen Susan greeted Elizabeth with pleasantries that, while certainly pleasant and friendly, did not have the empty quality of the usual cocktail-party chatter. She beckoned into the darkness for a drink for Elizabeth and, as a jeweled goblet of mulled wine was placed in her hand toward against the chill and a Faun seemed to hover at her elbow ready to refill it, led her over to the other side of the balcony.

"I think you have met everyone except my Marshal, have you not?" asked Susan, smiling. Elizabeth nodded as the great mass speaking with Oreius turned to face them, resolving itself as the distance decreased into a huge brindled tiger – eight feet or more of night-black fur striped with orange so bright it seemed to bleed into the air around him. Gigantic shoulders rolled with casual power behind a golden and diamond collar as he raised his symmetrical head and stared at Elizabeth with level golden-yellow eyes, patches of white sweeping up and giving him a quizzical expression. "May I introduce Marshal Altaica of the South?" Susan continued smoothly.

"Marshal," Elizabeth said formally, inclining her head. She did not even begin to guess the protocol for meeting a Marshal; or a Talking-Beast, or a tiger, for that matter. She seemed to remember something about peacocks and the fact they liked water. She didn't think it was relevant, but something within her expected an exotic, Sub-continental melody to the voice.

"Oh, dahrling," crooned the tiger in a voice far less macho and quite unlike _any_ she might have expected, "How simply scrumptious to see you! Oreius told us so much about you – when he wasn't going on about this _beastly_ war – and Queen Susan and I have been just _dying_ to meet you." He sat up and ran his head absently along Susan's arm. She moved her hand and petted his massive head, something incongruously similar to a cat with its mistress unfolding before Elizabeth. The older woman choked back her laughter behind a cough.

"A . . . delight," managed Elizabeth. Oreius bowed from the waist, his hand on his chest in what appeared to be a Centaur salute.

"Lady Elizabeth, I am glad to see you again." She curtseyed.

"And I you, General." Behind her, Hylonome was in conversation with Edmund, the boy-king chuckling and reaching into his pocket for sugar. Susan saw and turned with a chiding smirk on her face.

"Companion!" she exclaimed, dainty hands on svelte hips, "You'll ruin your appetite!" Hylonome stopped crunching, her face a picture of embarrassment, her cheek pushed outward with the sugar cube. Susan laughed again, and so did everyone else. Hylonome grinned sheepishly and swallowed.

There was, reflected Elizabeth, as the conversation drifted easily back and forth between the various people there, something startlingly _Narnian_ about the fact Susan had not had to apologize or explain for her chiding – which had, obviously, been meant as a joke. Susan's laughter was enough to show it was all merely a joke, a genuinely humorous event not at anyone's expense. The concept of the Narnians using laughter as a weapon, as a cruel and mocking thing, was simply inconceivable. Elizabeth smiled to herself as the Faun filled her glass again and she selected a few dainties from the trays circulating before the main meal. Out there, beyond these walls of light, there was a terrible war against horrible foes – Ogres and Hags and Efrits and Talking-Wolves and things more dreadful. And here was not an enclave against that; it was not by something _else_ this courtesy and decency was defended – courtesy was the thing doing the defending. Ideologically, wars in her world could be called many things – but all were really young men dying and women crying, bombed cities and churned earth. Here, in Narnia, she suspected wars were what the ideologies said they were; one could do the job and remain a hero in one's own eyes.

"Queen Lucy and Marshal Tumnus will be joining us in – I hope – a moment or two," said Queen Susan in answer to a question of Hylonome's. Elizabeth's mind ran over her memories of the young Queen she had seen only a few minutes before. Back home, in Lucy's own world, she would have been a scared child quivering in fear in a strange house as bombs rained down on cities miles away, praying for her mother and being kept from the truth her father might very well be dead by a Rhineland bullet. Back home, she would be one of the ideologies being fought for – the freedom from the oppression of Nazism. But here, in Narnia, she was a warrior and she could fight – directly, perhaps, with her little sword and little bow against terrible things, or perhaps simply by being who she was. Here was a world where one could stand up for what was right and not have to die for it.

Of course, mused Elizabeth, as the door opened and Queen Lucy – dressed in a dress that was neither childish, nor a woman's dress made small and without the bust, but something wholly suitable for her – entered in the company of a wise-looking faun with a mischievous twinkle in his bright eyes, Queen Lucy and Queen Susan and the rest couldn't _actually_ die here – she had read the books and she knew for a fact they got back to England safe and sound. It was the first time in a while she had considered the unreality of the Pevensies – and the whole of Narnia, in fact – and it brought her up short for a second. Hylonome and Edmund were her friends; good friends, friends as good as any . . . friends _better_ than any she had back home. And they weren't even real?

What did that say about her? And was it something she wanted saying? She was friends with made-up people? Hadn't she given up imaginary friends when she was six?

Then again, there was a difference to this – seeing Queen Lucy's face as she was formally introduced brought it back to her. Lucy had been accused by her siblings of making the whole thing up – but she had stuck to her guns. She had made it very clear she really believed the whole thing – because it _seemed_ real to her. And Narnia, Elizabeth reflected, as her hand was kissed by the wide lips of the Marshal of the East, seemed as real as could be.

Something stuck her – something that would not have struck her a week ago, before Aslan; perhaps her friendship with these fictional people said more about a change in what she was. These people were good friends because they were people who were capable of it; they were open and decent and there was no guile in them. She got the impression Hylonome could no more lie than she could fly in the air, and while she suspected Edmund could make you believe anything he said, she knew he was intelligent enough to realize honesty was the best policy. She wondered why she was suddenly so wise to this herself.

And did the fact she had read these books make these people immortal? If she hadn't pulled Varden back from Edmund the boy would be dead now – she was under no illusions about the fact she had saved his life, he had done the same for her and she was quite beyond such petty, mechanistic issues as "being even". At that point, was her presence in this world affecting it? And – if this was a story, as Michael suggested despite her protestations at being made into a character, did that mean she was an essential part of Lewis' work that he'd just never written about?

Did she have any free-will here? If the outcome was determined – and she suspected it might not be, she suspected this war could be lost and victory or defeat might lie with any, or all, of them – did that mean her actions were as well? Or did that mean regardless of what she did, it would all come right in the end? Or perhaps – most terribly of all – she was required to make certain choices to in order that it came all right in the end? What a horrible responsibility to place on a person!

But then that moment passed as quickly as a cloud over the moon. The whole world – the _real_ world – was made up of such decisions. People liked to think of the history of the world turning on armies and Emperors and Popes, but – in reality – a lot turned on lone men and women making seemingly inconsequential choices. Elizabeth was, she realized very well, the woman she was because of choices others had made – and choices she had made but could not even remember. To seek an unknown resolution by actions uncertain, to look to the future as a promised land rather than something everyone entered at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, was foolish. That way led rationalizations and relativism – of ends justifying the means, and worse. All you had to do, she realized with clarity as she was surrounded by decency and nobility and kindness, was to decide what is to be done with the time that was given to you. _Almost,_ she mused, _the means justify the ends._

"But to see it unfold is not to make it happen," Edmund was saying as she came back into the conversation. He was talking to Lucy, apparently following similar lines of thought to her own mind – although probably far more complex and deeper. "Our own free-will and the possession of omniscience," Lucy tried to say the word, Edmund repeated himself at a lower level, "_all-knowledge_ on the part of Aslan, or the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea, are not mutually exclusive concepts." Lucy's brows drew together in puzzlement.

Elizabeth found herself talking with Hylonome and Tumnus – rather unsuccessfully, perhaps, for the two of them appeared to be having a conversation about _hooves_ and what could be done to avoid certain problems caused by the harsh ground of the Lantern Waste. Marshal Tumnus was a bright, scampering little fellow as far as Elizabeth was concerned, but his hesitant manner of speech hid careful consideration and the mind of a political animal. Doubtless, the chief adviser of a young girl who held the title of Chatelaine of Cair Paravel had to be blessed with sharp acumen and long antennae. Elizabeth remembered that Tumnus had been a spy in the pay of the Witch only two years before, and considered – perhaps for the first time – that such a creature would have to be quick and clever and tricky.

That thought reminded Elizabeth of something and – not being able to join in the conversation about hooves – she asked, "Isn't Hedera coming to this little soiree?" Hylonome fell silent, giving the impression she did not know who Hedera was. Marshal Tumnus drew his cheeks in judiciously.

"Well, yes, Daughter of Eve, that is an interesting question," he said carefully, "By that I mean, yes, of course, had the spymistress been at the Cair then Queen Susan would have had no choice but to invite her – that is, of course, not to say Queen Susan wouldn't necessarily dislike inviting Hedera." The convoluted multiple negative tumbled her like young love and left her just as confused. "However," and here the Faun paused, licking his lips and seeming to consider, "Queen Susan found it necessary to send Hedera away from the Cair this very morning on undisclosed business – and so the question of invitations, for want of a better term, did not arise." He smiled, eyes twinkling above the triangle of brown beard and below the little devilish horns.

Elizabeth thought she understood quite well the relationship of Hedera with the other powers of the Cair, and this was the single twinge in an otherwise lovely evening – the realization that even Narnia needed, as she thought, such a person.

But such thoughts did not last long, for a gong called them to supper and the eight of them drew to the table and most of them sat down. It became immediately apparent why there were places without chairs at a table so high – these places were for the Centaurs, Hylonome on Susan's left and Oreius on her right. Altaica lounged as big cats are wont to do on the cushioned platform on Edmund's left and Elizabeth sat at his right. With Lucy between Altaica and Oreius and Tumnus next to Elizabeth, the host and hostess faced each other down the length of the table.

It was a merry meal – as formal as any meal got in Narnia, she suspected; which was exceedingly formal in some ways but not others. Certainly, the conversation and the wine never ebbed, but everyone was addressed and referred to by their title – your majesty, Companion, General, Marshal. Elizabeth was simply addressed gravely as "Lady Elizabeth" (or "Daughter of Eve" in a charming touch of quaintness by Tumnus). Yet there was laughter all around and there were none of the frivolous, silly courses that might be found in a grand meal of her own world – the food was elegant and gorgeous, but it was intended to be eaten and not looked at it.

Elizabeth started the meal – after seven daggers and a claw had been driven into the tabletop – by reaching outwards to the edge of her place setting – searching for the farthest orbiting silverware to begin the meal with. Her hands met empty tablecloth and Edmund's half-empty wineglass. She glanced down, to see that she had a soup spoon and a knife – and nothing else – flanking a soup bowl. She brought her hands in before anyone noticed.

Her puzzlement was short-lived, for – when the soup was finished – the Fauns whisked her soup bowl and cutlery away, leaving her side-plate and nothing more. The next course came with its own crockery and silverware. _Well, yes_, thought Elizabeth, _that makes much more sense._

Elizabeth had worried about Hylonome – for she thought the young Centauride would be uncertain and unsure of herself in this world of royalty and nobles. She had been ready to extricate the youngster out of any embarrassments she might stumble into.

Instead, she found herself being rescued more than once by Hylonome – who fitted in with her fellow Narnians so perfectly Elizabeth was quite shocked she had ever considered it might be otherwise. Hylonome's speech was simple and direct and open and honest; and that was exactly what was required. She addressed the King and the two Queens with deference, but politely disagreed with them and made her points known. A number of times Elizabeth shut herself up as she saw that Susan disagreed with her, only for Hylonome to guilelessly and politely point out that the two humans held differing opinions – and then Susan would start the conversation again; and provided Elizabeth remembered there was no harm in disagreement it stayed a conversation and did not become an argument. Hylonome, it was true, did blush whenever General Oreius spoke to her, and appeared to be in complete and total awe of him, but that barely registered on the radar of the conversation. Tumnus kept them enthralled with tales of the dancing Dryads in the Lantern Waste and Oreius spoke of the nine-names of Aslan and their meanings.

As the evening wore on and soup turned to fish turned to the main course, the conversation flagged a shade as marginally more serious eating was required. Elizabeth took the opportunity to look around the table and take stock of what was happening.

It was interesting to watch the various people eating – Edmund did so with his fork in his right hand, cutting with the edge of the tines on the bias of the meat and without looking – the dexterous moves of a surgeon as he carried on at least three conversations at once, gesturing with his left hand. Susan used her careful movements of carving and popping elegantly and meticulously constructed forkfuls into her mouth as punctuation as someone else might use "Yes", "Really?" and "Well!" Lucy and Tumnus ate with quick movements, bursts of activity interrupted by pauses in which conversation dominated. The Centaurs – weighing-in at vastly more than the humans and with correspondingly greater metabolic requirements – were demolishing vast platters of food with awful crunching noises. They did not use forks, and simply held the food in place and mopped up the juices and fragments with great hunks of bread as they set about it with wicked heavy knives. Flanked by these gobbling giants, Susan should have looked horrified – or at the very least out of place – but she did not; she seemed to treat it as the most natural thing in the world the Centaurs were drinking wine from bowls large enough to wash her face in. And, as Elizabeth looked and did not consider the Centaurs as humans with equine lower halves, or horses with humanoid upper halves, but rather – simply – as Centaurs, she realized that was just how they ate. Perhaps they were looking at her the same way?

What could not quite be got used to was the tiger sitting opposite her – Altaica was quite simply massive in a way the Centaurs were not. Humans are inured to horses and so – despite a Centaur being more alien and fantastical than a tiger – the Marshal of the South unnerved Elizabeth more. It might have been expected that he would – like his counterpart to the west – crunch through raw flesh and slice through bleeding bone and, if he had, that might have been less unsettling. But he did not – he ate the cooked food that the rest of them did; joints of meat and slabs of potato and delicately cut vegetables and all the rest. He lapped wine from a bowl that Elizabeth kept – despite herself – imagining "KITTY" stenciled on the side.

The tiger didn't seem like a tiger – Elizabeth was beginning to get used to the concept of Talking Beasts, and the best way she had found to do so was to treat them as rational animals, rather than humans in the shape of something else. But Altaica seemed to defy that; he seemed to be _trying_ to be human, or perhaps a pet of the humans. At the first, she had assumed Susan had chosen him and made him into that – treating him like an impossibly-large lap-cat to fulfill some need within her. But now, as she saw the way the tiger behaved – and the looks on Susan's face that marred her beauty with hints of pained resignation – she realized the situation was quite different. Altaica was forcing this role of mistress on Susan, when she might very well be wanting a friend. She remembered Nicodemus with Edmund – their passionate discussion and fighting side-by-side – and saw Lucy and Tumnus sharing a joke, and her heart went out to this young Queen.

Elizabeth and Hylonome started as Susan – with a look of distaste on her beautiful face and a sigh of inevitability on un-glossed lips – tossed the bone of her meal down the table to land on the plate of her Marshal. With a look of something like the joy of a slave given a largesse from his mistress on his face, he set about it. The others were perhaps used to this, but there was a polite moment of disapproving reflection directed at the tiger.

It was at that moment – when the conversation was strained and its structure might have been more obvious – she noticed what the conversation _was_. It was not, as she had first supposed, a simply random, instinctive thing; it was being marshaled and controlled by the two monarchs sitting at the heads of the table. Elizabeth watched as Susan and Edmund kept the conversation easily moving; batting easy conversation points to the various diners, turning the facets of the shy ones in the light of the others, drawing out answers and ideas. It was, she admitted to herself, quite an art and one she had remained completely oblivious to. Suddenly, she saw Edmund and Susan as not just children with precocious ideas and crowns on their heads – she saw them as monarchs, as rulers and Imperial Majesties. She caught Edmund's profile as he brought Hylonome into the conversation – never before had she truly considered what _King_ might mean. Only now did she understand what was meant by the Divine Right; that combination of battle, priesthood, mercy, judgment and power. Here, _by the grace of God_ was not just a phrase, it was the mandate by which they ruled.

The meal drew to a close and – as the stars blazed brighter above and the charcoal braziers were stoked and their gates opened wider and the wine changed to warming glasses of apple-brandy – the party found itself standing on the Sea-Terrace once again, the talk rising once more. Elizabeth learned Lucy was to set out tomorrow with her armies and Susan's cats towards the Lantern Waste; the young Queen was speaking with Altaica trying to learn something of what she assumed were forces under his command. Tumnus and Edmund were speaking in low tones in the corner, a conversation that did not invite guests, and Hylonome and Oreius were discussing – with grand gestures and movements – some athletic concept she had too few limbs to grasp.

And, so it was that Elizabeth found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with a girl less than half her age staring over the ebony sea under a shadow-black sky, beauty that defined the term less than a foot from her own eyes. "Do you like to swim?" asked Susan lightly as an opening gambit.

It was then, perhaps, that Elizabeth realized her conversation had only just begun.


	18. In A Glass Darkly

**Chapter Eighteen : In a Glass Darkly**

The conversation began then, but – with breaks for food and sleep and overlain with moments when she learned skills as well as knowledge – it continued for the next four weeks or so; up to the very day the great crusade left the port of the Cair for the Lone Islands. It was a week later Michael returned from the north. A week after that the ship came hastening from Galma, riding the wings of the winds and with her sails in tatters as the Winter storms battered her, bearing the message ships would be rendered unto the Narnian crown for a payment of silver and sapphires. Three weeks from the beginning of the conversation, the five hundred swords were billeted at the Cair and a week after that – at the end of Wildsnow, the very gates of Frostmelt, when the downward slope of the other side of the hill of Winter could be seen – the crusade actually got underway.

And – for that month, a whole cycle of the great silver orb in the sky turning and working the magic it did on the world below; tides of salt water and blood and more – Susan and Elizabeth talked.

It began that night on the balcony when Susan asked Elizabeth if she swam. It was a segue into a private conversation – a finding of a common ground to base future contact on. Of course, swimming could not provide such a contact – although she swam privately for exercise, it was a means to an end. That end, of course, was childish lounging on yachts and beaches in bikinis designed to frame rather than conceal.

Which – Elizabeth came to realize swiftly – Susan did not. It was, perhaps, strange this woman – beautiful beyond the normal measure of such things and quite aware of her own beauty – did not understand the concept of posing in a swimsuit; Elizabeth was certain such a thing had existed in the 1940s, or what else did GIs pin to their lockers and stencil on the side of bombers? Yet it was clear Susan viewed swimming costumes as something practical rather than something worn to be beautiful; swimming was one of the things she was good at and Elizabeth suspected she was valiantly defending this enclave against the encroachment of beauty's requirements.

Elizabeth and the Queen had remained talking far into the night, long after the others had gone to their beds – the common ground found was not swimming, but rather the seemingly inconsequential feminine things that do not group women of differing ages as mother-daughter, but rather as simply aspects of that eternal female men have divided into three; Maiden, Mother and Crone. It was as well Elizabeth did not preserve that distinction in her mind – for she might have wondered where she fit in that cycle.

Elizabeth made it clear she would like to learn more of the arts of war, as Edmund was going to be taking her on crusade. Even as she said that, she realized the choice of words was not perfect, and was certainly not what Edmund would have used.

"_Take_ you on crusade?" asked Susan. "Ed'll take his sword and armor, he will be followed by his armies and accompanied by you and Lord Michael." Elizabeth smiled self-deprecatingly and shrugged. "Still, I understand how you feel – if you can't fight then you might feel like a spare part."

The conversation moved on – to a place where Susan said she had no little skill with a blade and she would be happy to teach Elizabeth. It moved past that swiftly, the two women realizing this night was for a grounding of their relationship. A kinship based on nothing more than gender men would have sworn was based on more was swiftly building.

Men, Elizabeth reflected, talked about _things_; they spoke with nouns and verbs. In their conversations, things did things to things. In women's conversations – of which, she realized (living in a world where she was a women in physiology only and only allowed to be a pseudo-man as long as she looked like a girl) she had had few – things _felt_ things _about_ things. The conversation was not nouns and verbs, it was gestures and tones of voice – Elizabeth began to believe the figure that ninety percent of a conversation was paralinguistic.

A wholly feminine conversation was a novelty to Elizabeth, and perhaps to Susan as well. Both of them lived, for better or worse, in a world where masculinity either ruled or was present. Here, in their private conversations, they found they not only could but _wanted to_ move away from that.

The conversation over the four weeks was not of lipsticks and nylons and invitations; for such things are only feminine, they realized, in so far as defined by men. They were _things_ – concrete, measurable objects. The conversation made some headway in that direction but stopped, perhaps by the air of Narnia itself. Who, they asked themselves, would they be wearing pretty dresses for? Susan admitted to herself she looked less in looking-glasses in Narnia than she ever had at home – for those who looked at her were her looking glasses. Both of the women realized, perhaps that night for the first time, that the desiring of the desiring of one's own beauty was the vanity of Lilith, but the desiring of the enjoying of one's own beauty was the obedience of Eve.

Neither did the conversation slide long into the _he-said-she-said_ school of that art; not simply because there was little common ground of acquaintance for such gossip to spread and flourish, but because the two of them realized that, again, was feminine only as seen by the masculine. That was not about feelings – it was about reactions. It did not talk over what the conversationalists _felt_ about these actions; it merely discussed them – as things, as objects, as events. _He-said-she-said_ was nouns and verbs.

The conversation explored these avenues, moving down familiar passages of convention in the labyrinth – only to find, after a turn or two – that the hedges were uprooted and the walls razed to the earth. Here, they were outside convention – two women, alone but for the other and without preconceived notions of what they should be. By then, the moon had set and – bidding Elizabeth to meet her at the rocky promontory at dawn – Susan went to bed.

Elizabeth wandered slowly back to the chamber set out for her use – she had expected, perhaps, to possess a greater understanding of the feminine than Susan given her greater age and living in a "more equal" time. But it was Susan, the girl, the one from a time when women were mothers and wives first and foremost, who had felt the wind of freedom blowing through the maze walls. It was Susan who had managed to grasp what feminism was; it was not what Elizabeth thought – trying to be the equal of the masculine. It was, simply, to be feminine – and there was nothing masculine about that.

It was a truth so profound, so simply obvious it kept Elizabeth awake long after she had undressed for the night – for she had dismissed her ladies-in-waiting and simply flung herself naked and uncombed on the bed – staring at the ceiling and wondering at it. The feminist movement, in its literal sense, should be a movement to be more feminine. That was clear enough – how was it then that it had become what it had? How had it become – for she had now been sharpened to such things and her radar for injustice was acute – such an unfair movement? Where was the equality in demanding men and women be paid the same, yet giving women more leave for children? How was it the demand was perpetually made for men to get in touch with their feminine side, yet when a woman got in touch with her masculine side something was wrong? The glorification of the feminine was, by its very definition, not an egalitarian thing. Yet feminism wore the badge of equality and delivered none of it; and not even in the way it was supposed to.

Elizabeth stood and – wrapping a robe around her – padded barefoot through the icy castle. She stole into Edmund's room – something within her uncomfortable with the emasculated world she found herself in – but the boy was lying comatose on his bed, his lupine face gentle in repose, sleeping the sleep of the just. She closed the door and continued her walk.

Feminism did not so much glorify the female as try to make it into the male; women asked for an equality where no equality was possible because of fundamental differences between the sexes. Elizabeth herself remembered being offended when men held the door for her, and then raging when they did not. There was a hypocrisy there, a flaw in the battle-lines. Who was it, really, who had cheapened the role of housewife and mother? Who was it who had done these things? Her immediate response was to say it was the men, but she knew from her own experience that was a lie. There were plenty of men she worked with – older men, men from a generation past, men with wives and children – who valued their women. They did not joke about the little woman at home, they did not make vulgar jokes about their conquests around the coffee machine. They worked at their job and earned money and then went home and loved their wives and were fathers and husbands.

Elizabeth had read once it was a forty-thousand-a-year job to be a housewife; that is how much it would cost to hire child minders and cooks and cleaners and the rest for twelve months. The feminists – one of which she had been – decried this as an example of women being marginalized; they were slaves, they said, being forced into unpaid drudgery.

And so they went out and did other jobs for real money, and spent it and their time and health on doing what the previous generation had done for free. Children were raised by nannies and meals pinged in microwaves.

_If the job was so important, why not do it?_ Elizabeth asked herself. _At what point did money become the be-all and end-all of our lives?_ Yes, it allowed one to buy things – but why buy things one could make oneself? Men could not manage a household – she knew this, it was an article of faith of the feminist movement and something she genuinely, even now, believed. Men could not raise children half as well as women, they could not keep their intelligence diverted on a dozen things at once. Women – with their greater communication skills and multitasking minds – could. Men, on the other hand . . .

Even now, she could not admit it to herself. No, men were _not_ better at maths and spatial reasoning. The fact they could concentrate on a single subject to the exclusion of anything else was not an advantage, it was a reflection of their lack of multitasking. Men were better at logic, but intuition was better than that. Men were strong brutes, good for the days when meat needed to be brought back, but now?

She sighed, the question demanded an answer. Why had women abandoned the sphere where they ruled supreme and moved to the male one? Why had they said – for it was in women's magazines and literature this idea had risen, and the editors and writers of those periodicals were women, and so were their readers – the feminine was weak and wrong and bad? Why had they glorified the male and called it feminism?

Her own success was determined by how male she could be – she remembered trouser suits and brandy and cigars, bawdy jokes and delighting in being called "a girl with balls". And yet, there was a chronic fear of growing old in her, of no longer being the little girl, of no longer conforming to some impossible ideal.

And whose ideal was that? Who really set the standards for female beauty – or, rather, the _fashionable_ standard? For she knew clear as day that men – virile and desiring and passionate – looked for one thing in women with eyes that used calipers set by God Himself millennia before; women were looked at as child-bearers. It was all about the Golden Ratio in hips and waist – so tell me why we are starving ourselves and pinning ourselves back and tucking ourselves in? Who made this waif, this emaciated little _thing_ the ideal?

She wanted to say men, she might have even wanted to say the Church – but it was no use. She knew from where the ideals came; the fashion magazines, the catwalks, the models – a female world. Men (and even the Church, if the truth be told, as a cursory glance around the Vatican museum and the sculpture and paintings of even the most chaste _Sanctae_ would reveal) had always desired and promoted the figure she (now, and perhaps only now) thanked God she had been blessed with; curvy and voluptuous, healthy and alive. As a girl rounding into puberty she had had the figure of the Rokeby Venus and now – after two decades of dancing and athletics, cheerleading and kickboxing, good food and better genes – she would put a Trafalgar Square mermaid to shame.

For years she had almost endured her wide hips and bountiful breasts, her well-fleshed shoulders and thighs, the muscular stomach rippling in the center of her improbable hourglass figure. She had felt burning jealously towards skinny girls, and it was only when she could turn that outwards she found a measure of peace. _Flat-chested shrimps with hips like boys_ she called them, interior envy turning to exterior hatred and disdain, looking down on them (metaphorically and literally from her amazonian height) with bitter longing, exulting in the fact they always looked hungry and miserable, never looked full or satisfied – even as dissatisfaction of her own making gnawed emptily at her.

What, Elizabeth asked with the shock and horror of revelation, have we done to ourselves? And then, realizing she was not her whole sex, the personal element redoubled – _what has been done to me?_

It was regretful, perhaps, that such a question should be couched in such terms. Old habits die hard, and Elizabeth found it easier to rationalize the lie something was not her fault than accept responsibility. A scapegoat, a target for her ire, was always attractive.

And so it was that Elizabeth, fallen Catholic and risen Christian, found herself feeling attacked by a man she thought she knew and seeing his face through a glass darkly, angered by the words of epistles she had read before she understood and returned to like a general studying maps of enemy territory. A succession of sexless men, repressing her gender and tagging her as Eve and Lilith and _whore_, appeared before her eyes. She had given a name to her pain, and it was the Church.

_That_ had repressed her gender, _that_ had spread lies and calumny about her, _that_ had lain ritual and guilt and ancient superstition over the Truth and hidden the Face of God. As she looked at it now, she didn't see the Church as her enemies did – spread through all eternity, terrible as an army with banners, a crusade that God Himself had promised could not but prevail – but still stood shoulder to shoulder with them. She saw simply a grubby little collection of men with base lusts and passions and flaws; not Saints, just ordinary humans. It was a nice idea, she thought, forgetting just _Whose_ idea it had been, but it was flawed. Christianity could rule itself, could regulate itself. What was needed but this simple Truth that she had felt? She did not, she felt, need to be part of the Church to be part of Christ.

It was very late now, and it she was certainly too tired and enraged and self-righteous to compare her new-found understanding of the feminine with the Church she railed against. Had she done so, she might have made a very different picture of the fragments of her knowledge – a picture which was not as black and white as she might have desired.

She went to bed, and slept dreamlessly.


	19. Worrying a Pretty Little Head

**Chapter Nineteen : Worrying a Pretty Little Head**

Susan's body shattered the dawn surface of the water like a bomb.

Elizabeth had made her way down to the rocky outcropping – a collection of steps and shelves of time-eroded rock at the very edge of Narnia – in the half-light before the dawn and now stood – shivering with cold and lack of sleep – alone in a gray and dreary world. A mist was rolling off the sea, and she appeared to be standing on a little island of bare rock surrounded by softening fog, white and somehow alive. As the sun had risen the vapor had burned away, the comforting bulk of the Cair gradually resolving, its white-stone seeming to coalesce from the mist, tinted rose-pink in the light of the day. The booming of the breakers which crashed against the cliff below the castle had sharpened into greater clarity as the five hundred yards between the true shore and her little spur of rock emptied of cloying fog.

Susan had been nowhere to be seen, but a Naiad – one of the Queen's seemingly-dozens of handmaidens – had said her majesty wanted a hamper taken down to the promontory with Elizabeth. Elizabeth had dismissed the water-nymph and carried the large basket down there herself. She was sitting on the creaking lacquered wicker and staring up at the materializing castle when things began to get interesting.

The cliff on which the Cair stood was one hundred yards tall if it was an inch, a nearly-sheer surface of terns' nests, hardy plants, handholds and sudden death to unwary climbers. Beneath, the seas crashed against the rock, rising a dozen yards or more with each wave and then sucking back to deeper depths. The Sea-Terrace was at the top of that cliff, the balustrade cantilevered out over the rock face. As Elizabeth watched, a figure appeared on the terrace and lightly stepped onto the balustrade. The figure was a slender mannequin of white limbs and a black torso with long dark hair blowing in the sea breeze. It balanced on the balls of its feet, flung its arms upward like a church spire and paused for a second.

Then it flung itself forward in a perfect dive, twisting and turning and flicking in the air. The dark hair streamed backwards like a comet and the balled fists smashed into the water at the exact moment a wave crashed against the cliff, cleaving a passage for the head and shoulders.

A moment after the sight of the figure vanishing as into a magical roiling mirror, the splash of impact – audible over the crash of waves as a higher-pitched tone – wafted over to Elizabeth. She started upright, looking in vain for the figure. For God's sake, one hundred yards? She'd be dashed against the cliff for sure by the waves, and that water was freezing if it was anything.

Susan swam underwater about a quarter of the way towards Elizabeth, relying on the wave to pull her away from the cliff and diving deeper to take advantage of the undertow until her lungs ached for air. She surfaced like a dolphin, almost breaching with a flick of her whole body. She sliced into the water again and then, with the rolling shoulders and overhead arm movements of the born swimmer, covered the remaining distance to Elizabeth in less than five minutes. She reached the edge of the rocks and flicked her long hair out of her eyes, it spreading behind her like an oil slick or weed, floating independently of her in the water. Below the bust of what Elizabeth would have called a vintage swimsuit, but which Susan clearly considered the fashionable item of the age, the girl's body narrowed into waist and then flared out into the indistinct scissoring of pale legs.

"I'd say, 'Come in, the water's lovely"," chattered Susan through clattering teeth, "but that would be a fib. It's awfully cold." Elizabeth could only stare in wonderment at the girl below her who bobbed and rose in the brutal swells, her skin paper-white with the cold and her eyes blood-shot with salt water and tears. Elizabeth could see the sheer muscular effort it took to keep in one place in those heaving Winter seas. She reached down and offered Susan her hand.

"Why?" she asked. Susan accepted the hand, but in reality leaped from the water with a single kick of her legs and a foot on the rock. She landed beside Elizabeth and sent a rainbow of arching water droplets flying backwards with a practiced swing of her head that lay her hair along her back.

"Why not?" asked Susan in return, flipping open the hamper and pulling out a huge towel which she wrapped around herself and rubbed over her arms and legs. "I do that every morning when I'm at the Cair – snow or sun or rain or fog or storm or hail." She flung the towel down and reached for a robe which she tied around herself. Elizabeth took in the swimsuit – reaching from a line around the top of her bust and down without revealing cutaways to what would have been a very short and revealing skirt, but for a swimsuit was modesty itself – before Susan hid herself from the chill wind.

"Why?" asked Elizabeth again, unable to think of anything else to say. To her mind, it was still simple madness to risk such a thing – in the Summer it would be foolhardy, but in Winter it was insanity. The water had to be deep, with a ferocious undertow. The dive would have to be timed perfectly with a wave or you could find yourself smashing into the seabed with the force of a train-wreck. Susan merely smiled, walking barefoot along the rocks, her feet brushing weed and moving over barnacles. Behind the two women, a fast Narnian clipper cut through the fog, leaving the harbor towards Galma bearing Edmund's request for ships and sailors.

"How can you be Queen of somewhere if you haven't experienced all she has to offer?" she asked as if it were the most natural question in the world. Elizabeth considered for a second, and then simply smiled. It was, she had to admit, a philosophy she had not considered.

Susan – and her siblings, but it was the elder sister that was here with her now and was occupying her thoughts – were the monarchs of Narnia, drawn out of another world for that very purpose by a Being who had created that world and this. She and the land were connected, joined in some way Elizabeth could not fully grasp. Her very presence had perhaps broken the Everwinter that lay on Narnia; some ancient prophecy set in motion by Aslan when it was written, magic that merely waited the arrival of the four of them to spark it into brilliant life.

Quite simply, Susan _was_ Narnia, in a way that Elizabeth had begun to suspect the night before when she mused about the Divine Right of Kings. She _was_ the State. It was her that Edmund had meant when he said that in order for a nation to endure its people must survive. So long as she was alive, Narnia would be too.

The girl seemed to have finished her walk around the little rock pools and patches of weed that made up the promontory. She cinched the belt tighter around her waist and drew her hair back with a twist of a leather thong. "Shall we begin?" she asked. Elizabeth looked nonplussed until Susan reached into the hamper and selected two sheathed swords – Elizabeth recognized one as the pearl and silver scabbard of Queen Swanwhite's blade. Susan handed it to her.

"People think I have no understanding of war, even though I can fight," Susan said thoughtfully, as Elizabeth strapped the belt around her own waist. Her ladies in waiting had lain out suitable clothes for her – doubtless on Queen Susan's orders – and the buckskin leather of the doublet and the wool of the jerkin and hose protected her from the chill and allowed her freedom of movement. Susan looked hampered in the thick robe as she waited for Elizabeth to make the first move.

They dueled, with elegant, expansive, swiftly moving strokes, back and forth across the promontory. Any illusions about Susan being significantly slowed by the robe were quickly dispelled; certainly, she was less-swift than she might have been, but that was perhaps all to the good for the woman who was trying to learn from her.

Elizabeth had martial arts experience – muay Thai and karate – and the excellent balance and breathing and footwork of her preternatural dancing skill to build on as a foundation. Susan was a good teacher – she was patient, and generous with her praise and unflinching with criticism. Never once did she touch Elizabeth save with the flat of the sword – although by the end of the morning she herself was bleeding from a score of shallow cuts that hurt Elizabeth more than her.

Between bouts, as she learned combat, a conversation was built up – a conversation that paralleled what she was learning about the minutiae of fighting. Susan was not a warrior; oh, she could fight – she was probably the match of Edmund if the truth be told. But in those freezing dawns – and there were a lot of them; every morning until the crusade left Susan and Elizabeth met on the promontory and dueled, or practiced archery shooting at bobbing cork buoys out in the harbor, or simply swam in the calmer, shallower waters of the bay behind the promontory – Elizabeth learned there was more to being a warrior, and to war, than fighting.

Peter, she learned, exulted in it – he was, as Edmund had said, a born warrior, a natural born killer. To him, war was a simple matter of targets and objectives and resources and calculated risks and battle. His view of the Narnian war was direct and simplistic – the objective was the destruction of those who threatened his land from within or without. And, Susan had to admit, he was the very best at what he did.

Lucy was too young to grasp it fully; her conception of war was glory and bright feasts and of people brought from the brink of death by enchanted Cordials. Death itself did not figure in her worldview, and that was something – perhaps by tacit agreement – Susan and the rest had agreed to preserve for as long as possible. It was clear to Elizabeth now that Lucy saw Susan – rightly or wrongly, and whether for her sister's reasons or her own Elizabeth could not tell – as a substitute mother. Elizabeth had not wanted to take that away from the younger woman, not when Susan's own mother was a world away - nor was she entirely comfortable in the presence of the girl Elizabeth had thought she had wanted to be - and so had chosen not to speak to Lucy so very much. To be the unmarried virgin mother of a family whose father is an absentee Lion, to have your elder brother trying to ape a father forced to go to war, to be everything that was _woman_ – human and female – to an entire nation was a lot to put on the broad shoulders of Susan.

Edmund's conception of war was complex – deep layered like Susan's herself. He was, ultimately, the most like her. As the blades clashed day after day and hundreds of arrows were lost in the sea, Elizabeth saw the details of that relationship unfold before her. Susan could be mother to Lucy and mother to Narnia – she could even be mother to the headstrong Peter when the occasion demanded. But to her little brother whom she had loved from the day he was born; the little brother who had helped her with her sums and who had barked his knuckles on the teeth of the boy who had dipped her pigtails in inkwells and had run to no-one when he hurt his knee, she could not bring herself to even try. Edmund and she were too alike, that much was clear. The easy way they spoke together – there was no suggestion of the trying to live up to or trying to mother that dominated Susan and Lucy's relationship, nothing of the opposition of justice and mercy, forgiveness and punishment that marked the brothers', and nothing of the common-sense that checked her elder brother's gallant but willful rush forward. Edmund and Susan were cast from the same mold – meaning that she could not bring herself to place herself above him.

And now, wondered Elizabeth, where does this place me? The woman who has advised him and wiped his tears away and, yes, mothered him and wished I had sons like him and would die at his word? She realized, suddenly, this was not a toy-boy crush, nor was it some sort of suppressed desire for motherhood making her clucky and gushing over a cute baby. This was, quite simply, motherhood in someone who had never had children – an adoptive state that had crept up on her. It was this, she realized, that was motherhood – not sitting at home and being lost and alone and passed over for promotions and excitement and life, but being responsible in some way _for_ a life, yet letting it grow on its own. Watching, with uncomprehending joy, as the best qualities of oneself appeared in places unlooked for and in ways unasked. To simply love, and honor, and obey – to give up your _life_, either in time or in blood, for your children and to have them as your legacy. To have the thing that was left for posterity being nothing more than a biological imperative and to simply express the very femininity you were.

Such conclusions might have meshed with the rest of her mind, but Susan was driving her back with a series of numbing strikes on her shield arm, and she simply did not have the mental power to assimilate such knowledge then and there. A spike of jealousy for the Pevensies' mother – for these were not _her_ children, not even in Narnia – stabbed through her. The startling revelation she was jealous of someone who did not even exist over children who were unreal cost her her concentration and she paid for it in a welt that left her arm hanging limp for an hour.

Susan and Edmund, Elizabeth grasped as her bruises stiffened and healed over the twenty-eight days, understood war better than either of their siblings. They saw it was wider and deeper and broader than the things Susan was teaching the older woman, in the same way those skills were more than simply the position of swords and the flight of arrows. War was not a simple matter of battle, it was a state of mind – of saying that there were things worth dying, killing and living for. One could wage war without a fight – Edmund had made a career of it – and, equally, one could fight without waging a war.

It was at the level of the combat that Edmund and Susan differed – Edmund could see the necessity for sacrifice, of the point where everything that could be done (and perhaps _more_) had been done, and there was no more time for words. Elizabeth had seen that in him – the repeated offers to the wolves, and the total commitment to his decision when it was made. Susan, on the other hand, could not. She was never sure if everything had been done – if every other avenue had been explored, every other option tested and considered. It was that that held back her deadly golden blade and why she never traveled alone in Narnia; Edmund knew she might never come back.

Elizabeth had made a career of interpersonal relationships – of introductions and networking and favors and boons. Yet this conversation was really the first one she could remember having since she was a child, the first one without conditions and rules and pressures and reasons. As her muscles hardened and sinews stiffened under Susan's unforgiving tutelage, she realized that she had made a friend for life.

A week after the conversation started, one afternoon where the sun was high in the sky and it was surprisingly warm, the fog burned off the sea and the rivers chattering with meltwater, Michael returned. The first the women knew of him was the rattle of barding and armor as he rode a foaming horse from the north at a terrible gallop. They were swimming in the bay, leisurely exercising their muscles and laughing and joking with the green and golden skinned merpeople who stuck their heads out of the water and clicked and trilled at the humans, laughing gurgling laughs and with salmon-pink gills oxygenating to crimson red as the waves lapped up their necks. Elizabeth noticed the horse and its rider first and swam – with the give-and-take motion of the sea-swimmer – towards the shore near him. She clambered laboriously out of the water, adjusting with an effort to the awful sense of gravity on her tired body. "Michael!" she exclaimed. He turned in the saddle to face her.

"Glad to see me?" asked Michael. Elizabeth began to smile at him, preparing an assurance that, yes, she had missed him when, in reality, she had been so taken up with her adventure and experiences that she had hardly considered him - but then stopped herself. She realized he was not asking the question - as another man might - meaning _Did you miss me?_; he was not seeking a bolstering of his ego or any sort of reassurance. He wasn't asking about her relationship with the time when he wasn't there, but was rather asking about her relationship with the _now_. And _now_ was a situation which included him. She realized, quite simply, she was glad it did.

"Yes," she said, smiling, "I'm glad you're here." She rolled her shoulders, keeping them moving so the muscles didn't cramp in the sea breeze. She bent and picked up a towel, drying her legs and arms off. "What news from the North?" Behind her, Susan timed her strokes with the waves and, with barely a touch on the rocks at the water's edge with her strong arms, leaped out of the sea to stand - elegant and breathing deeply - on the coastline of her kingdom. She swept her long hair back out of her green eyes with a long forearm, a tide of water cascading down her back. She smiled at Michael and dropped a curtsey.

"Lord Michael, I presume?" she asked, holding out her hand to him. He dismounted from his steed and bowed before her, raising her hand to his lips.

"Queen Susan," he said. He straightened and reached into the saddlebag of his foaming horse. "Your majesty, I bear a message from the High King which he bids me bring before yourself and King Edmund, and your counselors." Susan saw the scroll in his hands and nodded.

"I shall have them summoned immediately," she said smoothly, reaching for her mantle and pulling it over her broad shoulders. She swept her eyes over him, ready to offer him the hospitality of the Cair - a bath, food, medical attention, change of clothes - but stopped when she saw him. He did not look like Edmund and Peter did when they set out for war - but neither did he look like they did when they returned. His armor was well-used but well-maintained, looking serviceable for years to come. He did not look tired or weary, there were no wounds on him and he stood before her at attention in every sense of the word. A shiver ran across her shoulders, feeling the meeting of two worlds - hers and Michael's. He, she was very sure, was _bred_ for war - it was more his natural environment than peace. And here he stood, on her lands, with his machine-tool hands and deadly determination. She swallowed and remembered that hospitality was appropriate even when it was unwarranted. "Would you like to rest before delivering the message?" Michael shook his head.

"That will not be necessary, your majesty." It was clear to Susan that there was no difference between necessity and volition for this terrible lord of war and so - with another curtsey - she lead the way to the castle.

It was a brief meeting – the two Monarchs, General Oreius, Marshal Tumnus, Elizabeth and Hedera, coiling like ivy around the report Michael delivered, sat poring over the map in the Chamber of Instruments. Michael stood at attention in armor he had not been out of for two weeks or more.

"The Giants are well-lead – surprisingly so, in fact," he said flatly. "They demonstrate more intelligence – in both senses of the word – than would be considered usual." Even he could not bring himself to use the world 'normal' with reference to a giant. "The defeat of the Giants on the northern border, even an achievement of armistice, will take longer than expected. The High King regrets to report it will most likely be Spring before this campaign is finished." There was a mutter of concern around the table.

The Monarch-in-Residence broke the silence. "To not expect setbacks would be folly," Susan said slowly. She was gleaming in her gilded armor again, formally accepting tidings of war. Edmund nodded.

"I do not think this news changes our plans – although it is disquieting to hear that the Giants are so skilled at war. Hedera," he asked silverly, "your intelligence suggested they were brutish and simple, do you still stand by that?" The Ivy-Dryad rustled like wind through dry leaves.

"Your majesty, I cannot be held responsible for the war capabilities of all the nations that press on Narnia. My network brings me tidings that the Giants of Ettinsmoor are now in league with those of the Castle Harfang far to the north; a far trickier prospect, I am sure you will agree."

"The Wise Giants?" asked Edmund. He shook his head, remembering the failure of his diplomacy with that very power. Hedera nodded. "Aslan help us all," said Edmund softly. Oreius spoke to the spymistress.

"Lady Hedera," he said softly, his voice rumbling in his chest, "Can you offer any suggestion as to why the Wise Giants of Harfang might have allied with the brutish creatures of Ettinsmoor?" Hedera shrugged her verdant body.

"Common ground found in hatred of Narnia?" she asked with a smirk as if the question's answer were insultingly obvious.

The Centaur spoke again. "And their accurate intelligence?" Edmund answered before the Dryad could.

"This avails us nothing, Oreius." He turned to Michael, "Does the High King think he can defeat the Giants?"

Michael nodded. "The High King is sure of it, your majesty." Susan smiled weakly.

"He always is," she murmured, rising from her seat and leaving the room. And, with that, the meeting was deemed to be over – the war council of Narnia left the room and went to their own individual tasks.

A week passed – a week that Elizabeth and Susan spent in their conversation and Michael and Edmund spent in studying maps of the Lone Islands and in conference with Hedera concerning the intelligence her network had brought back from those far-flung outposts of the Narnian empire. Stores were laid by, barracks were readied for the soldiers that – even now – were hastening to the Cair as Winter turned.

The weather had howled around the Cair for that week, the wind now smashing against the windows and now threatening to suck the glass right out of the lead. Snow buffeted the castle in little whirling eddies and Edmund remonstrated with his sister not to dive. To everyone's surprise, including her own, she obeyed.

A week to the day after Michael had returned from the North, two weeks after the clipper had set off to Galma, it itself returned – blown before the howling tempest, its men and crew red-eyed from lack of sleep, unshaven and with hands that moved like automatons on the ropes and spars, stays and sails ripped and torn. Its captain bore a message from the Shipmasters of Galma – five ships of war would be with the Narnians within ten days. The negotiated price was no more than Edmund was prepared to pay, and preparations went on apace.

On the morning of the eighth day after this, the army arrived at the great western gate of the Cair – a motley collection of Dwarfs, Fauns, Dryads, Talking Beasts and Edmund's commanders, headed by his personal bodyguard; a dozen great serious wolves, lean and deadly with iron fur and voice-stealing eyes. Welded and molded together by necessity, taken from their homes and on a crusade that perhaps few of them understood, Edmund and Michael billeted the army swiftly and gave them two days' leave.

The tenth day saw the arrival of the ships from Galma – tall, stately galleons that rode the winds like creaking mountains of wood and linen. They anchored in the harbor, a forest of masts and a plain of deck stretching over the water, and the Commodore of the fleet came ashore to the Cair to speak with Edmund. Plans were finalized and the loading of supplies and victuals and arms and armor began the next morning.

By the evening of the twelfth day since the news from Galma had arrived, the ships were loaded and plans were finalized There was little else to be done – nothing, in fact, save go. The planning, the arguments, the effort and the stripping of Narnia bare in order to allow a boy to take Narnia's banner and the name of Aslan to places no Narnian had been to for one hundred years were over – when the tide sucked away tomorrow morning, it would carry with it all of this.

Nightfall found Edmund standing on the Sea-Terrance, alone and in armor, his sword in his hand and his eyes searching the horizon. Elizabeth knelt in her bedroom, her sword held reversed before her trying to think of what to pray – and finding that simple patience descended on her. Hylonome was checking and re-checking her armor, telling herself it was mere vanity and obsession that made her examine time and time again this gorgeous suit Oreius had ordered for her. The soldiers in the barracks knew they were embarking before dawn the next day and so knew they should be asleep early – but lanterns burned in the barracks, most of them lit by Captains who knew their men well-enough.

Of all of those who would go to the Lone Islands on the morrow, only Hedera – for Edmund needed the spymistress in such a twisted land – and Michael were calm. The Dryad was slumbering inside her thick ivy vine, twining around the tower of the Chamber of Instruments, dreaming the ancient and unknowable dreams of the tree-people, while Michael was knocking on the door of Susan's private chambers.

"Enter," said a voice.

"You wished to see me," said Michael, closing the door behind him. It was not a question, and Susan did not treat it as one. She dismissed the nymph brushing her hair with a gesture and stood.

"Yes. I would speak with you, Lord Michael," she said. There was a nervous twinge to her voice that she had not noticed before. She wished she could put her fear down to the same emotion as affected Hylonome with the General – and, with any other man who looked like this, she might have done. But that was not the case with Michael. It was something wholly different – this was not about his face, but what lay behind it. "I realize your time is valuable, I will not keep you from your duties for long."

"As you wish, your majesty." Susan sighed and sat down again. She did not gesture for him to sit, for she knew he simply would not.

"Lord Michael," she began, and then stopped. "How should I begin?" she remarked almost to herself. "My royal brother tells me . . . interesting things concerning your knowledge of Narnia. He tells me you are from a world where our lives in Narnia are, stories, tales . . . books."

"I have read a series of books that describe something of your lives here." There was an important distinction made which she did not notice.

"My lord," she said with an effort, wrapping her strong fingers around themselves, "you will realize this is hard for me to grasp and understand. I have spoken with my royal brother concerning this – his understanding and wisdom are greater than mine in this regard, and we are not of one mind on the subject. He does not desire to possess knowledge you may be able to furnish. My brother has his own reasons for doing so, but I have mine also." She paused and looked at Michael, her beautiful face wan and drawn in the lamplight. "If I ask you a question, will you answer?"

"For certain, your majesty," Michael answered swiftly, "but my answer may not be the one you desire to hear, nor may it be complete." She nodded.

"That I appreciate and understand, Lord Michael. I know you are a true man and could no more lie than deny Aslan himself." She paused, and seemed to draw her courage into a hard knot. "My lord, how am I viewed in the stories?" He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What am I famed as? Am I known for being more than the beautiful Queen of Narnia, or am I just a pretty face?" There was an imploring look in her eyes it would have taken a heart of stone to resist.

Michael spoke carefully and judiciously. "Your majesty," he said, sinking on one knee beside her, his head level with hers and his statuesque hand holding her quivering ones still, "I can only tell you what _does not_ happen to you, not what does. The books do not say what does happen to you – but they make it clear what does not happen to you." She swallowed.

"I see," she said slowly. She paused, looking at the elegant machine tool that rested on her hands. "Lord Michael, tell me truly – is Narnia real? My brother speaks of a parable told by Aslan to teach us something – is this world more real than a fantasy or a dream? Or is it nothing more than a tale?" Michael closed his eyes and opened them very slowly, and then said something she could never have expected.

"Queen Susan, how am I to answer you?" he asked, "Depending on the answer, the readers of this very story will blame me for what they think happens to you." She swallowed, raw fear in her eyes.

"You think that this, this _now_, in this very room, is a tale too?"

"If the books I have read are, what is to say we are not?" he asked. She licked her lips and considered. "Your majesty, I repeat – I cannot tell you what does happen to you, all I can say is what does not. Yet I will be blamed for what they think happens if I tell you, and – when they know who I am – they will wonder why I of all people made what they assume was your fate occur."

Susan raised her hands and his with them to her lips. "Dear Michael, you are a friend to Narnia and have been a friend to me. Are they right? Is the fate they fear mine?"

Michael looked her dead in the eyes, a skewering glaze that washed over her like an undertow. "No-one is ever told any story but their own, your majesty."

An imperious light clawed its way into her eyes. "This is my story, Lord Michael." He nodded.

"So it is, but the audience is reading – and that tale is not for them." He paused. "The Chapter is nearly ended; if it is your will, I will tell you when it is done."


	20. Oars Out From Narnia

**Chapter Twenty : Oars Out From Narnia**

After two months of sun-bleached snowy whiteness and the drab gray of rain, the riot of color of the gathered crusade force – drawn up in serried, disciplined ranks on the quayside before the five Galmian ships – seemed almost indecent. Dawn light washed over them as, high above on the cliff-top, the crimson and gold flag on the westernmost tower was lowered.

King Edmund was leaving Narnia, to an uncertain future.

Dressed in polished and inlaid armor of gold and silver and with amber winking on the pommel of his sword and at his neck, he sat astride a great gray stallion before the immobile ranks of his troops. Here and there, a Faun's ear twitched and a Dryad shivered as – far away – snow fell on her tree's leaves, but – in the main – there was silence and stillness. Beside Edmund stood Michael and Elizabeth, the man massive and immovable in gunmetal armor and the woman gleaming like a spike of pearl and silver, an icicle growing from the rock of the quay.

Edmund drew his sword with a ringing sound of steel on steel and stood in his stirrups, raising his voice to ring off the walls of the Cair and down the years.

"Fellow Narnians!" he cried. "Today we set forth on the voyage that will free the Lone Islands from the influence of evil, the crusade that will reunite the crown of Narnia under the name of Aslan for the first time in one hundred years! Today we strike the first blow in the last battle against the Witch!" He paused and drew breath. "I know that it will not be easy – I know that many of you are uncomfortable, afraid, unsure of why we leave Narnia when she needs us. To you, I say this – the Lone Islands need us more.

"Have we forgotten so much in less than two years? Have we forgotten what it was like before Aslan returned?" Something in his voice spoke of the personal element. "I would not wish that on my worst enemy – and my worst enemies lie many leagues to the east!"

He paused, and his voice dropped, yet still carried – Elizabeth smiled as she saw a born statesman and public speaker. "And so to my enemies I will bring what I would wish on my friends – the name of Aslan." He swept his eyes over the army before him. "Defeat lies with our enemies, victory lies with ourselves! By your hands will their impious pride be lain low, by your deeds will the name of Aslan ring from the islands near the rising sun, by your blood will the Everwinter be washed away.

"I do not ask these things for myself. I ask these things for Aslan."

There was a moment of echoing silence. Sea birds called with croaking cries as they took off and flew out to sea. And then Hedera raised her fist and cried, "For Narnia and the Lion!"

"_For Narnia and the Lion!_" roared the army with a single voice, the packed mass of color exploding in a riot of movement as weapons were shaken and banners unfurled. Dwarfish hoods were thrown in the air and braying, hootings, hollerings and roars broke the silence. "_Narnia goes to war! King Edmund! King Edmund!_"

"Warlord," growled Edmund, his eyes narrowed to chips of stone. Michael turned and saluted the King.

"Sire?"

"Embark the troops."

oOo

As the morning tide pulled away from Narnia, Edmund stood with Michael and Elizabeth on the poop deck of the largest of the ships, his legs braced against the roll of the sea and his eyes fixed on the retreating Cair. Elizabeth – unused to the choppiness of the ocean crashing into the cliff and the rebounding waves – had grabbed the poop rail and was hanging onto it. Michael, of course, was immobile as the mast.

As the three of them looked back they saw a slender figure blazing like flame with borrowed sunlight standing on the topmost tower of the castle. Queen Susan raised her hand and twisted her sword, motes of reflected light stabbing their eyes in a gesture of farewell.

And then the first real wave ran under the bows of the ship and the great purple sail with the lion embroidered on in it gold – raised that very morning by the Galmian sailors and woven by Narnian maids – filled out with the stiffening breeze, and the adventure was well and truly underway. The ship pitched in the heaving seas, smashing through each wave with a great smack of spray and a delicious feeling in the sinews and veins. The three of them turned from Narnia and set their faces to the unknown East. Edmund breathed in deeply, his lungs filling with salt.

"Ah! The crusade begins!"

Elizabeth let go of the poop rail and managed to move towards the ladder leading towards the quarterdeck proper. She reeled as the ship hit a larger wave and grabbed the mizzenmast for support. There was a laugh from below her.

"Narnians not sailors, milidy?" asked a woman decked out in breeches and jacket. To Elizabeth's eyes, she looked nothing more than a parody of a sixteenth-century pirate girl; a romanticized version of "Calico" Jack Rackham's bonnie lasses. Polished black leather top-boots came above the knee, the tops rolled back to reveal red silk lining. Quilted breeches of some blue velvet-like material stretched over muscular and shapely hips, on which a thick black belt studded with iron rivets and hung with gaff, eyeglass, cutlass and dozens of knives rested. A flouncy silk blouse with more ruffles and lace than honest material was worn under a puffed and slashed jacket in crimson and yellow. The flame-red hair cascaded onto the epauletted shoulders in a cataract of curls, a green scarf wrapped around the captain's head. Gold hoops hung from the ears and braided golden ropes and tassels hung around the torso, itself hung with a leather baldric bearing yet more knives.

"I'm not Narnian," managed Elizabeth, staggering down the ladder and sitting down heavily on the curved bench that ran around the mainmast. Edmund practically slid down the rails of the ladder with his effortless physical grace, bowing in the elegant Narnian style at the captain. She doffed a ridiculous plumed and cockaded hat and swept an extravagant bow in return.

"Yer majesty," she said deferentially, "All is ter yer likin'?"

Edmund bowed again. "Of course, Commodore Pearl – the reputation of your country is not unfounded. How soon do you think we shall make Galma?" The officer didn't even seem to consider as she answered.

"Two days wi' these winds – 'tis an easy run." Elizabeth stood and gave a few experimental sways – she was very swiftly getting better at this.

"And then what, Commodore?" asked Elizabeth. Pearl glanced at her and reached into her voluminous jacket, producing a map which she proceeded to unroll on the bench. The three commanders of the Narnian forces crowded round.

"After Galma, we stand north-east, milidy – we'll sail just south o' the Seven Isles an' come at the Lone Islands from the north. 'Tis better that way – the winds whirl aroun' the Bight o' Calormen." Gloved fingers described a clockwise circle on the map that span from Galma, up through the Seven Isles, curled around to the peninsular of Calormen and followed the coast back to Galma and the Cair. "We'll mek better time that way – mebee two weeks to the Lone Islands from Galma."

"Low pressure system," muttered Elizabeth, seeing the classic signs of a cyclonic storm and wondering if the coast of Archenland and Calormen were battered with hurricanes. She noticed a series of nonplussed looks.

"What yer be sayin', milidy?" asked Commodore Pearl.

The Galmians, Elizabeth knew from conversations with Susan and Edmund, were the foremost sea-faring race of this world. Despite her crimson hair – which Elizabeth suspected, from the exotic and oily scent wafting around her, to have been improved by cosmetic means – Pearl was not pure-blooded Northern; she had the dusky skin and fleshy lips that marked her as having Calormen heritage in her blood. It was the same for all the Galmians – a hotchpotch of races from all over the known world, blown to the little island covered with forests and mixed by the winds that carried them everywhere.

The entire society was geared around the sea – those Galmians who were not sailors were shipwrights. Nobles were not measured by the land they owned – for the concept of owning land was alien to them; land provided the trees which made the ships and was the property of the Admiral of Galma exclusively – but rather by the ships. Commodore Pearl – exotic and flamboyant and colorful, with her accent that smelt of salt and tar and seemed to be ready-made to be repeated by an exotic bird – was clearly a powerful noble, able to command the loyalty of four Captains at the very least.

The Galmians, famed as sailors and superb seamen, were also famed for their brash and overbearing sense of style; or lack thereof. "Too gaudy for a Galmian" was a common phrase in Narnia and Archenland when referring to styles and modes of dress. Having seen what their ship's commander was wearing, Edmund and Elizabeth privately doubted if _anything_ was too gaudy for a Galmian.

Pearl reached into the top of her boot and pulled out a black glass flask, curved to fit snugly around her calf and warm from her body heat. She uncorked with her teeth and poured a generous slug down her throat. She smacked her lips and shook her head vigorously. "By the Powers! That hit the spot!" She offered some to Elizabeth and Edmund, but they declined – perhaps concerned by the fact a drop of it appeared to have fallen on the tar and hemp caulking of the deck below and was dissolving it. She shrugged and knocked back another belt. "Aye then, yer monkey-jumping sons of the sea!" she shouted to the crew, "Get full sail set an' smart abou' it!"

oOo

Commodore Pearl was as good as her word – on the second day out from Cair Paravel, a lump in the horizon was visible, a lump that grew to a rock and then an island and then a great solid thing that made you doubt the sea was quite so big after all. For the last two days, the ship had been out of sight of land and it was so very easy to believe the entire world was water; that memories of land had been just illusions and delusions, dreams and phantasms. One got used, reflected Elizabeth, very swiftly to the movement of the ship – she was walking with easy grace on the deck now, dressed in leather and wool as proof against the slicing wind and salt spray. Edmund was similarly dressed, but Michael was simply wearing well-oiled armor in black leather.

She had not seen much of Michael, for he had spent most of his time among the troops, talking to them on their level; of their hopes and fears and dreams and worries. She had – moving from her cabin to other parts of the ship – overheard him occasionally, speaking to warriors in a way not even Edmund could manage. It seemed that Michael understood and empathized with the soldiers as one of them and never missed an opportunity to relieve them of their pain – even if only by listening to their war-stories.

Truly, she thought as she and Hylonome played deck-quoits on the quarterdeck in the late afternoon, Edmund was right to christen him "Warlord". All of the soldiers called him that now. "Warlord", the master of war. She had not really seen him fight – only deal with a few wolves – but there was a deadliness that hung around him that suggested to see him fight would be to see it redefined.

Who _was_ Michael? She reflected how little she knew of him as she – on Edmund's orders – pulled on her armor in readiness for meeting the Admiral of Galma. He had certainly served in some sort of military – he had that mindset. He was young, or at least did not look old, yet there was maturity in his eyes. He was, she decided as she walked down the gang-plank shoulder to shoulder with him, an officer in one of the elite regiments; SAS or Royal Marines. An officer on holiday for Christmas. And here she was, on the penultimate day of Wildsnow (or, if you like, January), meeting a Pirate-King.

Of course, one did not call the Galmians pirates – although most of them _were_. They did not recognize the concept of ocean territories – no man could own the sea. A man could use the sea for gain – or loss – and this justified piracy to the Galmian mindset. King Edmund – mindful of the potential for diplomatic embarrassment and delays if a ship bearing the monarch of Narnia engaged in piracy – had promised to match any prizes which the Galmians did not take in return for a "no piracy while I am on the ship" policy. So far, he was not quite regretting it – although it was a pretty price in gems he was having to pay for the brace of Terebinthian ships the fleet had let run.

Michael was aware of the need for the soldiers – most of whom were quite unused to shipboard life – to have shore-leave, and so the ships were to dock for a day, giving the Narnians a night spent being separated from their Lions and Trees in the taverns and rum-joints of Galma's capital city Surfhaven. Of course, what the Galmian tavern wenches and off-duty sailors would make of the Dwarfs and Fauns and Dryads was another matter.

The delegation to the Admiral of Galma – Edmund, Michael, Elizabeth, Hylonome and four Dwarfs carrying a great chest filled with silver and sapphires – had only just reached the gates of the Admiral's palace when a great noise, as of an entire quarter giving itself over to wine, Dwarfs dancing, Fauns playing and Dryads singing, rose. Edmund smiled.

"Never let it be said the Narnians wasted a minute," he quipped as the gates of the palace swung wide.

The meeting was relatively unrewarding – the Admiral was not there. He was on board his ship, which was hardly surprising. A Commodore who clearly wished he was elsewhere – somewhere with a leeward side and a necessity to tack to move away from it – received them with disinterested courtesy. For the Galmians, this was a ferrying job – Edmund's demands for _no piracy_ had been most galling. Still, even the Commodore managed to display some interest when the vast chest filled to the brim with the treasures the Witch had robbed from the Narnians over the years was opened. He offered the Narnians food and drink, but his company was poor and distracted. Edmund was itching to get underway, annoyed at Michael for granting a day's leave and annoyed at himself for his annoyance. Elizabeth wanted to get to the party in the harbor quarter and knew she could distract Edmund with it. Hylonome had found that she really did not like the sea, and was quite liking being back on the land, but this Admiral fellow really didn't have any idea about how to feed a Centaur. Anyway, he was being _most_ rude, staring at her and asking the humans (as if she couldn't speak for herself), "Which exotic and far-away island did she come from?" _For a sea-faring people_, she thought, _they don't sail west very far._

It was a relief for all concerned when the Narnians could politely refuse the offer of the Commodore's further hospitality and make their way with eager feet towards the harbor quarter. It was dusk when they arrived and the party was in full swing. Edmund threw a bag of gold coins over the bar and bade the tavern owner serve his troops until it ran out. Elizabeth found to her delight that the Fauns seemed to know a tune that was awfully close to the reel for an Irish jig and – giggling at the way her feet tangled in armor – she taught the Dwarfs it. The sight of Hylonome dancing both the male and female figures, striking sparks from the stone floor of the tavern with her iron-shod hooves was something Elizabeth would never forget as long as she lived.

Laughing, drinking, singing, whirling with his arm around the waist of a dancing Dryad, Edmund span over the corner of the room. He slipped into place next to Michael, sending his partner twirling away into the melee of joyous creatures that bobbed and weaved and sang and laughed in a heaving mass of color and life in the center of a pirate haven. The smile slipped off his face with the grace of his chosen life and he was serious and sober again.

"Tomorrow," said the King flatly.

Michael nodded. "Tomorrow is the real beginning of the war – two weeks on board ship and then hard fighting and terrible things." He paused. "This will be the last time they'll have the luxury of enjoying themselves for a long while." Edmund looked up at him.

"Michael!" he reproved, "Let them cut loose a little! Some of these won't _see_ another party."

Edmund would have expected any other man to smile, but Michael didn't really need to. "You misunderstand me," he said softly, "your bag of gold ran out an hour ago – they are spending mine now."


	21. Landfall

**Chapter Twenty-One : Landfall**

The next two weeks passed with an itching sense of waiting for Elizabeth. As soon as the ships slipped away from Surfhaven with the morning tide it was clear that something was different; the next time they touched land would be as crusaders and conquistadors. It was a role she had never played or entertained playing. The endless hours on board the ship – for there was nothing for her to do save sit in her cabin or pace the deck nervously – allowed her the so-called luxury of introspection; she found herself turning this concept over in her mind and mulling it from every angle.

Her reaction to what she was doing and was part of – namely armed imperialism against a non-aggressor nation for the fixed purpose of removing a form of government she herself found abhorrent – was not perhaps what she might have expected, or even liked. The fact that she was making this choice herself made it easier in some ways – she had a _personal_ hatred for the concept of slavery and dominance by the Witch's forces; she was not simply obeying the words of her masters. Yet, in others, it made the situation decidedly uncomfortable. She was acting as an invader – she did not have the luxury of being able to say that she was "just following orders", she was as guilty as any. The self-appointed mission of her conscience in those long fourteen days became determining if such a thing constituted a crime.

What _did_ she know of the power that ruled the Lone Islands? Nothing – save that which Edmund and Hedera had told her. And neither of them could really be considered neutral in this matter; one was the Emperor of these islands. Despite everything she knew about the Lone Islands – the fact its society was, or had been, a mirror of Narnia's – she found herself imagining a backward country, its natives struggling against complex colonial rules and masters; a sort of Narnian Raj. What was to say the Lone Islanders, tiring of their unfair masters, had not simply taken advantage of the rise of the Witch in order to achieve a degree of independence? At that stage, was she not guilty of the worst sort of colonial imperialism – smashing into a small island nation with a terrible, overwhelming military force? (She had seen maps of the Lone Islands; five hundred swords would practically _cover_ them.) She leaned on the rail and buried her face in her hands, feeling like and thinking she was a combination of Alexander the Great, Cecil Rhodes and Hernan Cortez.

These people might just be trying to have some form of self-determinism, and wasn't she part of the saber of imperial Narnia riding roughshod over their own government? What right did Edmund really have to claim to be Emperor? Aslan? Aslan didn't really strike her as the sort to hand out countries like that – his was a more personal contact.

And then Edmund himself came and stood beside her as the lookout shouted, "Land ho!" She looked up, feeling the presence of the boy-king beside her – and the moment passed.

_This_ was Kingship, _this_ was justice. This, standing next to her in the slim form of the gray-eyed monarch, was rulership personified. To suggest, even for a second, that a country which had been gifted to him by election or conquest should ever slip away – should ever even _want_ to slip away – was nonsensical. Edmund was not making this crusade to expand his empire, nor for his personal gain and imperialistic ambitions. He was making it, quite simply and utterly honestly, for the people he was going to set free.

And what of the fact that none of this was really _real_? The creatures against which the crusade would be fought would be removed from her – which she still arrogantly thought of as _reality_ despite her efforts to the contrary – by at least two stages. They were elements of a parable told to a man who was a story to her. At that stage, wasn't it the case that those who died – even the violence itself – were simply a symbol and emblematic of something else? Of course, she mused, such a hypothesis could only really be entertained when she was not being slammed around by wolves.

Dimly, she recalled lessons from her childhood – Sunday school that lasted all week – of the legends of the Fall, the Archangel casting down the Great Red Dragon at the dawn of time. Liberal Biblical scholarship – an academic discipline the University of Notre Dame had strongly advocated when she was there – maintained this was a legend, a tale to illustrate a wider truth. There was no real physical conflict . . . but now she had to wonder.

Perhaps there _had_ been a real battle, a real war, between the Archangel and the Dragon. Perhaps the War in Heaven had been just that; perhaps the legendary worlds where heroes defeated monsters – where St. George slew the Dragon and Bellerophon killed the Chimera – were not simply metaphors. Perhaps they were – while still _representing_ humanity's struggle with the dark powers of temptation and weakness and our own fallen nature – on some level _actual_ battles.

And maybe she stood on that _actual_ level now. Suddenly, a new way of looking at her adventures here swam into view – she saw it not as a story about real events or something that was happening to her, but rather a legend spun around emotional struggles. Whatever happened here was of such a nature humans in England would call it mythological. This crusade – where men would die and islands would be invaded – was not akin to le Coeur de Lion smashing into Tyre; this was a man coming to spread the Word. This was the struggle of good men against the forces of temptation and ignorance and tendency to Sin.

Right here, right now, everything could be solved with a sword. Enemies were clear and objectives obvious. There was a simplicity here, the simplicity of legends. St. George's Dragon did not need to be thought of as a part of a living eco-system, it was not extermination of bio-diversity in order to allow the expansion of the Naked Ape – it was a spiritual flaw that needed to be excised.

God had handed this clarity to her – not with an _awareness_ of her own flaws and weaknesses, for she had those in her hands and mind – but with a shift in the method of dealing with them. When all was said and done, she mused, it was easier to die than use your head. It was easier to _kill_ someone than to proclaim the Word of God. Susan had taught her how to do the former in a fortnight; she had no real idea where to begin with the second.

Because she was here, she could do the second by the first. Right here and now, she was an evangelist. Dimly remembered verses from the Bible drifted back to her – _put on the full armor of God, for we fight not against flesh and blood . . . against you the gates of Hell will not prevail . . . Church militant_.

Always, she had assumed that these verses were used to justify the violence of the Crusades, of the Inquisition, of the Witch Hunts. And now she realized that wasn't the case – there had been no _real_ attempt to justify these things; there had been a half-hearted effort to hide it, but the real motive had been blatantly political. Church leaders leading what they should not. Men drunk on power.

The real struggle had been spiritual, and had not the Church always fought _that_ war, in one form or another? A vision of a war without battles but with legions of white-robed casualties appeared before her – a war that the Church Militant had fought unceasingly for two-thousand years.

Here and now, in Narnia, she was going to get to see this war fought with metaphors made flesh. Here, she was going to be a Holy Warrior for Christ, with the armor of God on her soul and the sword of Truth in her fist. Here and now, she was part of the Church that marched through history, terrible as an army with banners.

_Oh, Hell,_ she mused to herself, _Did I just become Catholic again?_

That reflection drew Elizabeth back to reality enough that she noticed her surroundings for the first time in minutes. She saw the dolphins who had paced the ship and breached and dived, breached and dived, leaping like stitches out of the water before their bows, had turned and swum away. She shielded her eyes and gazed south under the flat surface of the low-hanging cloud.

A peculiarity of Narnia – of the whole world of which Narnia was a part, she corrected herself – was that it was flat. She remembered that much from her reading, but had never really considered what that might mean in practical terms. In her own world, the curvature of the earth limited the horizon artificially – the surface of the world fell away beneath itself and soon nothing could be seen but the sky; itself falling away and down. But here, the world was flat and nothing limited sight but the blurring effect of the air and the sea mists. The sky hung low, pregnant with storm clouds that whirled in a lazy spiral above her, its center somewhere off towards Terebinthia, and under it the sea ran in crashing waves, reflecting the dull gray of the roof above. At the very limit of sight, an indistinct hump in the waveforms that did not pitch and heave like the rest of them was visible. It might just possibly have been green.

Commodore Pearl was by her side now, her eyeglass raised. "Felimath," she said after a few seconds. She turned to Edmund, "We'll be within' hailin' range in a few hours – yer orders?"

Edmund whistled sharply through pursed lips, a fluttering note that spiraled upward clean and pure. From a spar above, something fluttered down – a raven larger than a hawk with a bright and startlingly intelligent eye. It settled on Edmund's mailed fist as the King said, "I want some scouting done – I'm not putting five hundred swords ashore without knowing where we need them." He turned to the raven. "Cornelius, bring me a report."

The bird, glimmering green-black in the sunlight, squawked a reply and spread his wings and took off, his hard primary feathers battering Elizabeth in the cheek as his wings spread more than she had expected. For a second or two, the bird was visible winging off southwards, but then the salt-spray engulfed him and hid him from sight.

"What do you think he'll find?" asked Elizabeth. "And what's the general plan of campaign?" Edmund faced her.

"Felimath should be all but deserted – it is a low, flat island populated by sheep and a few shepherds. Maybe one or two villages – but no large settlements. I do not plan to land there – it would be a military dead end. Our plan of campaign is to land on Doorn – the larger island to the south of Felimath and where the majority of the people dwell – and prosecute the campaign from there. Of course," he shrugged, "beyond those generalizations lie the details. The Warlord and I have a number of strategies, but they all depend on seeing the lay of the land."

"So, we double t'cape o' Felimath and lan' on Doorn?" asked Pearl. Edmund nodded.

"That's the general plan at this stage – it may change, but I doubt it. The army will disembark as swiftly as we may and off-load stores and supplies. We'll establish a camp near our landing site and – as agreed – you and your ships will stand off from the shore and await our signals. You have enough food?"

"Fer a month or more," Pearl said, "an' we can always plun'er some more. . . or we could buy some, I s'pose," she added as she took in Edmund's disapproving look. The King nodded and the pirate gave a flamboyant bow and left.

A few hours later, the line in the surf had resolved itself to the naked eye into a low green hill with white breakers crashing at its feet. Behind Felimath, the gray slopes of her sister Doorn reared. With a whirling of wings, Cornelius appeared with the suddenness of a conjuring trick, clattering like a mechanical thing made of jet and copper. The jerky movements of his head and bright button eyes did nothing to dispel that image.

"Your majesty," he croaked, his voice rough and somehow unfinished, "I beg to report. I have flown over the Lone Islands and see much that pains me – there are terrible crimes being perpetrated by humans against others."

"How surprising," hissed Hedera sarcastically. The dryad appeared to have come from simply nowhere, seeming to slink out of the cracks in the deck. Elizabeth started and then listened as Cornelius continued.

"There are monstrous creatures there – broods of the Witch; I have seen Minotaurs and Ogres, Hags and Black Dwarfs. It is they that provide the bulk of the armies suppressing the inhabitants, though it seems as if the Sons of Adam are in charge and behind the cruelty. Your majesty," continued the raven in a tone of greater urgency, "there is a dark presence lying over the islands – sorcery gathers in the towns and the woods, sire." Edmund nodded.

"It is as I feared, but true heart, steel and faith in Aslan will carry us through. What of the defenses of Narrowhaven? Can we stage an assault on the capital itself?" The raven clacked his beak a couple of times.

"Not by my council, sire – the harbor and city are well defended. And there are military outposts throughout the island of Doorn, connected by excellent roads and with a network of messengers riding fast horses. By my advice, you will maintain your original course and land near to the point of Doorn." Edmund nodded as Michael approached.

"Warlord?" Michael nodded once, conveying everything he needed to – _the troops are ready, I await your orders, I agree_ – in a single movement. Edmund unrolled a map and spread it on a bench, Elizabeth holding the edges down for him. He gestured with his dagger. "We'll double the cape, coming around the west side of Felimath and then moving east up the straits." His dagger dallied around a point where the straits narrowed and then flared and then narrowed again just before Narrowhaven, forming a body of water the shape of an arrowhead and nearly a mile wide at the broadest point. "If I thought we could afford to get this close to Narrowhaven, I would land here." He looked up at Michael, who shook his head. "I thought not – here, then." He pointed to a point about three miles west of Narrowhaven and four from the end of the peninsular at the western end of the island and directly south of a shoal on Felimath "We will carry out our original plan – we can anchor in Crescent Bay." Crescent Bay had been mentioned often as a landing ground in their plans at the Cair. Pearl leaned over and looked at the map.

"Three fathoms clear," she said with satisfaction, "no danger o' grounding." Edmund looked around the faces above him and smiled with satisfaction.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let us put on armor and pledge ourselves to Aslan. Warlord, prepare the troops for embarkation."

oOo

It was late in the afternoon, the dying sunlight bleeding into evening, as they rounded the cape of Felimath. The sun was setting behind then, crimson light seeming to pour like liquid down through the straits. The choppy seas were gray with red-stained whitecaps, looking like a shifting field of cooling ash and roiling lava ahead of them.

The five ships edged forward under the slack breeze, turning to the south east to cover the half-league towards Crescent Bay. On their port side the low slopes of Felimath – green and soft and warm, dotted here and there with the gray blotches of shepherds' huts and the smaller dots of fluffy white sheep – slumbered while ahead of them the gray slopes of Doorn reared, stony and mountainous, with great pine forests sweeping upwards from the small bay that was their target. On the fo'c'sle of the lead ship, Edmund, Elizabeth, Michael, Hedera and Hylonome waited, the lean gray shapes of a few of the western wolves at their feet, headed by the muscular presence that was Rapine, their commander. The humans were gleaming in metallic armor and the Centauride was muted but beautiful in the green- and brown-stained leather and mottled woodland cloak of the scout. Hedera was, as ever, naked – but there seemed to be harder, woodier bunches of leaves and branches clustering around her vulnerable areas; dry and desiccated woody armor preventing her sap from being spilled. Save for a collar or two, the wolves were in ashen-gray fur from snout to tail.

A quarter of a league. The army was drawn up in ranks on the decks of the ships, standing at calm attention, awaiting the order to lower the boats and make for the shore. It would take time to disembark quite so many troops, not to mention stores and supplies, and at that moment the crusade would be vulnerable – over-extended with one foot on the land and one on the sea. Everyone scanned the shoreline for a sign of danger, but the overhanging cliffs and fading light made it difficult. Edmund narrowed his eyes as something caught them.

"Warlord," he asked slowly, as the distance closed to half a mile or less, "what is that?" Michael looked where the King was pointing.

At the top of the cliff there were a great number of pine logs – or, in truth, whole trees denuded of needles and branches – piled on top of each other, lying down horizontally and reaching a height of a dozen logs or more. They seemed to be held in place by great posts driven into the earth vertically.

"Logging?" asked Elizabeth, "There's a lot of trees around here – maybe it's a logging farm." Edmund turned to her, a whisper of fear touching his skin.

"At the top of a cliff? In winter?" he asked carefully. She shrugged, not yet feeling the danger. Edmund turned to call to Pearl, standing at the tiller, when Michael's voice snapped his head back.

"'_Ware Giant!_" he thundered. Elizabeth saw the whole thing – the huge, hideously ugly creature appearing from behind the pile of logs, pushing aside whole trees as it rose from where it had been hiding, the dark green pines swaying as if in a gale. It was humanoid – but a terrible parody of a human; great thick, brutish limbs and flabby skin, like a badly-made skin-sack stuffed with lumpy meat and gristle. Its jaw jutted forward like a bulldog's, great tusks snarling and drooling as if they fitted badly and the creature was trying to make itself more comfortable. Beneath a low, sloping brow that seemed to be studded with bony protrusions under the filthy and scared skin, piggish eyes glared malevolently at the ships below.

The distance between the ship and the shore was five hundred yards if it was an inch – too far for arrows, but not too far to hear the reverberating bellow as the creature threw back its hideous head and howled with rage and anger. It stooped down from its thirty feet of grim might and wrenched up a massive stone, dripping mud and soil and raised it above its head. Elizabeth could see grotesque veins writhing like worms on its lumpy, disproportionate arms as it drew its hands back for the throw.

"_Hard a port!_" thundered Pearl, hauling the wheel over as fast as she possibly could. Around her, her captains did the same and – agonizingly slowly – the bows of the ships began to turn.

It was nowhere near enough.

Spinning lazily in mid-air, the stone spun across the bay, fragments of soil and earth flying off it and splattering into the choppy sea. With a sickening crunch almost as bad as the realization, it struck one of the boats amidships just above the waterline. With a terrible yielding, shattering creaking-crash, the hull of the unfortunate ship simply exploded, fragments of wood careening in all directions and the hulk pitching into the heaving sea. A great fountain of water rose up, a plume of white spray as the stone sank to the bottom of the bay, carrying with it great timbers and planks. Edmund watched in horror as a fifth of his crusade force was flung into the sea, crashing into the water with bone-breaking impact, being sucked under by the floundering ship and the weight of their own armor

Pearl and her captains were expecting the Giant to hurl another stone and so were sailing as swiftly as they could north, trying to put as much distance between them and the hideous monster. Edmund was yelling orders, telling the army to get ready to disembark onto Felimath. Everyone was rushing to and fro, icy chaos taking hold of the army and fleet.

Only Elizabeth remained standing at the bow, a horrible freezing sense of dread taking hold of her. Slowly, something made her turn – there should have been another stone by now.

The Giant had a great chain in his hands and was pulling on it with all his might. With a flash of horror Elizabeth realized what it was wrapped around.

The upright stakes supporting those hundreds of logs.

And not just logs, she realized as they came loose and the avalanche of wood bounded off the cliff top and came crashing down into the sea with a rumble of thunder and a terrible crashing and booming of water – the logs had merely been a layer resting against the stakes, supporting great masses of rock and stone; tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of _ground_ that fell from the high cliff and into the three fathoms of water at the bottom, sending up a huge boom of spray and echoing noise that left her deafened and stunned. The water rose like a tidal wave, rushing from the cliff and rising as high as the poop deck. Elizabeth screamed an inarticulate warning as she braced herself and the wave hit the stern of the ships.

It was like being shunted in a car, but ten times worse. Her teeth jarred in her head, snapping down on her tongue and filling her mouth with blood. The deck flexed and creaked, nails being torn from their mountings and flying like shrapnel to ping off armor and lodge in flesh. The mast trembled as the ship rose in the water, creaking as it was subjected to stresses it was never meant to handle. As she – and everyone else on board – was knocked sprawling, her bones loosening, the wave passed under the ship, catching it up and all but lifting it out of the water. The ships spun, all control gone, careening towards the shoals at the northern side of the straits. Here and there, soldiers fell overboard and disappeared into the churning waters.

Elizabeth looked back, seeing the Giant leap off the cliff and land in the waters of the bay. The three fathoms of water that their proud ships had easily sailed in came up to his lower chest and as he bullied through the water with bellows of rage and hatred, her blood ran cold.

Any sense of control of the ships was gone now – the sailors that were needed to man the rigging and the tillers were overboard or knocked flat. The force of the water was carrying the ships inexorably towards the shoreline to be beached and grounded in the shallows.

For one, Edmund was relatively pleased by this – at least comparatively. If he could get his army on land, he was sure he could regroup and defeat the Giant coming after them. Regroup on Felimath, establish a base of operations and . . .

His head snapped to the left as he heard a rattling clatter and wood-on-wood boom from behind him and the low-pitched whistle of something scything through the air. With a massive splintering crash, a huge trebuchet-hurled rock smashed through spars, mast and rigging of one of the ships, crashing down on the deck and punching through to the keel. Crew and soldiers went flying like dolls as Edmund realized, with a sinking heart, that this was as sophisticated an ambush as any he had ever planned.

He spun around to face Felimath, taking in the wheeled war engine pushed into firing position by a great crowd of Minotaurs and Ogres. With the speed born of long practice and harsh masters, they were cocking it again and dropping a massive stone into place. A minute, maybe more. A small group of black-haired Dwarfs stood near the front of the engine, sighting with bronze instruments and scribbling notes on slates.

Somehow, Michael was still standing, thundering orders across the deck and over the terrible crash of timber, ripping of cloth and ever-present skirl of the screaming ocean. Edmund yelled at him, "We have to get ashore – this is a damn coconut shy!" As he spoke, the engine cocked with an ominous click he knew he could not hear but felt in his soul. The Dwarfs hurried back to bronze wheels and began to spin them, moving pegs and re-setting levers.

Behind him, the Giant was closing, no more hampered by the water than a human wading a river. A few arrows came from the Narnian ships, but the pitching of the water and the terror of the monster threw most of them wide of the mark and those that hit troubled him no more than a fly from the marshes. They wobbled obscenely in his quivering, flabby flesh like cactus spines.

With a great grinding noise and the horrible violating sound of hulls being torn open, the three remaining ships crashed into the shoals, the rushing of water into holds adding to the cacophony of noise. Edmund leaped to his feet and drew his sword.

"To me, Narnia! The lion!" he thundered as he leaped into the sea, struggling through water that came up to his neck. The wolves were in the water in perfect synch with him, guarding his flanks and rear, protecting their master yet not denying him the honor that was his. Behind him, the shattered and sorry remnants of the army abandoned the boats and plunged into the water, floundering and struggling in armor, moving agonizingly slowly towards the beach.

Hylonome reared back, her hooves pawing the air, and cantered off the ship, crashing into the sea and plunging forward with equine grace, her hooves pounding through shingle and surf. Ahead of her, the engine fired with a great whirling elegance, chains rattling and ropes whistling. Another rock tumbled through the air and came down with a killing blow on the deck of a third ship, shattering it asunder and sending troops flying like splinters of the mast. Unable to reset the engine in the time they had left, the Minotaurs and Ogres ran forward, drawing huge curved axes and great spiked clubs.

Elizabeth had not leaped off the ship, she was frantically helping those stunned and wounded, trying to rouse those knocked unconscious before the ship sank. She was dimly aware of Michael leaping into the water with a bellowed prayer. She was so far from herself she did not even consider if she was hanging back from lack of physical courage. She noticed that the light – already dim – faded suddenly, and looked up to see the Giant looming over her.

The enemies on the shoreline were not expecting the Centauride – the furious gallop and her four-footed surety had allowed to her to reach their lines before the great monsters had drawn up into ranks. And so it was that Hylonome, with a screamed cry of, "King Edmund and Aslan!" barreled into the Dwarfish engineers. One of them lost his head to a sweep of her sword and two more were trampled to wet ruin on the dewy grass. She came up on her forelimbs, her rear hooves smashing out and cracking spine, ribs and armor of one of the little stunted _freaks_ she had leaped over. "Narnia! Narnia!" she neighed, rearing back as the Dwarfs scattered and the Minotaurs charged her with bellowing roars.

Elizabeth dived to the side on the deck of the ship, drawing her sword as the shattered mast of one of the ruined ships came down like a club where she had been a second before. With a deafening roar, the Giant wrenched his splintered weapon from the deck, rocking the ship, and swept it sideways.

With a fluid grace she had no time to admire, Elizabeth simply leaped over it, even as it swept Dwarfs and Fauns into the sea with a hideous crackling of bone. The ship slewed backwards as the masts collided and she landed with an easy flex of her knees on the heaving deck. There was no thought in her mind, nothing crowded out anything except the _now_ – her trying to survive and, if at all possible, defeat this creature. Her body responded to threats before her mind had recognized them, fighting with instinctual precision. Her muscles flexed easily, moving with an unknown grace and effortless ease. She was, her mind realized with a shock that didn't cause a single hitch in her movements, a _warrior_.

Queen Susan had done her work well.

On the shore, Hylonome was alone and over-extended, surrounded and being charged by dozens of rampaging Minotaurs, their stinking breath bellowing in condensing clouds of stench. She cantered to the side of the first blow as the second crashed into the crossed guard made of her two swords, the impact forcing her to her knees and jarring her arms. The Minotaur reversed his blade and made to hook her head from her shoulders with the reverse edge.

His head flew off as Michael crashed into the line like a thunderbolt. Beside him, Edmund flicked his sword upward and sliced off an Ogre's hand, sending it and the club it held tumbling to the grass. To their right, Hedera was standing with her arms spread, her hair writhing like floral snakes, roots extending from her thighs and calves and embedding her into the earth, vines and thorns erupting from the ground and pulling monsters down and apart. All around them, battle was joined.

Elizabeth rolled to the side and stabbed outwards, the blade of her silver sword stabbing into the back of the Giant's wrist and skewering it. With an enraged bellow of pain and anger, the Giant whipped its wounded hand back, dropping the club as it did so. Elizabeth simply let the sword go, drawing her dagger and leaping backwards into the surf. The Giant roared and shoved the ship aside, striding through the water to get towards the little thing that had hurt him, his right hand hanging useless and black-red blood dripping into the water. Moving with the grace of a mermaid, Elizabeth gained the shore with seconds to spare, snatching up the recurved bow of one of the fallen Black Dwarfs.

Edmund would have preferred to fight back to back with someone, but it was impossible – the movement in the press of battle was simply too fast and too furious for anyone except the wolves to keep pace with him; Rapine and those he lead remained defending him no matter how swiftly he moved. Hylonome was leaping here and there, using her height and weight to take the battle to the Ogres and Minotaurs. She alone among the Narnians could match them for sheer size, and in terms of skill she left them cold. Their ferocity might have told against her, had not her blood been up and her young eyes filled with tears and horror at such a cowardly ambush. An Ogre swung his club at her; she simply ducked out of the way and planted a hoof on his forehead. His spine snapped like a marrowbone and he toppled like a fallen tree. Around her, the ground was thick with dead Narnians and monsters.

Michael was in the center of the combat, standing atop a small mountain of dead Minotaurs. As he hacked down yet another, the rest seemed to come to a realization that this man's skill and strength was beyond them – they fell back, minds that could not know fear knowing terror. He was on them in a heartbeat; joining them like slabs of beef in a bloody orgy of butchery.

Around Edmund, Fauns and Dryads were falling – his heart ached as his imagination pictured the groves that were at this very moment dying as the tree-women fell, clearings appearing in the Lantern Waste that would be silent for years to come. His rage redoubled his efforts as he whirled and hacked, not feeling his exhaustion or wounds, his face tight-lipped and white, his sword painting bloody lines in the air. Baying howls and growls cut the air as Talking-Beasts leaped into the fray, dragging down their foes with claws and teeth. To his right, the Lantern Waste elite hauled down a Minotaur, it bellowing and mooing piteously like a bull in a bullring.

Thanks in no small part to Hylonome's frantic assault which had prevented the defenses from being organized and Michael's unstoppable valor, the Narnians were gaining the upper hand in the battle. No few had fallen, great or small, and there were few that were uninjured – but the numbers of their enemies were falling.

_Of course,_ thought Edmund as he turned to see the Giant lumbering forwards_, numbers do not win battles – and I'll bet being six times my height helps._

The Giant could still break the back of his army – what was _left_ of it – with simple strength and terror. He knew that his army would kill it, but at what cost? The thing would drive half the force before it with plain unadorned fear, and crush the rest. It was to no avail if the Giant died and he did not have enough soldiers left to do the task he came here to do. He spun, hacking down his last foe. Michael had lost his sword and was grappling with a Minotaur, his hands locked around its neck.

Edmund was under no illusions about what he would have to do. As the Giant loomed closer, towering over Elizabeth and threatening to crush her to jelly, he sprinted towards it. Ignoring the fear that leeched the strength from his bones and the horrible aches in his muscles, he yelled inarticulate threats at it.

Elizabeth – coolly, calmly, as if she had all the time in the world – fitted an arrow to the string and drew the flights back to her ear. "Go get 'em, baby," she whispered and let go.

The arrow vanished – barb, shaft and feather – into the eye of the Giant with a wet squelch. For a second, the creature continued to lumber forwards as if nothing had happened. And then it stopped, slowed, took a tentative and unsure step forward. A bemused expression spread over its hideous face as its knees began to give way, tumbling and crashing forward like an avalanche. Like a shivering landslide of malodorous flesh it slumped and tumbled down, smashing onto its face in the surf, feebly trying to raise itself. Elizabeth ran forward, wrenched her sword free from the flailing arm and leaped onto its shoulders. A pig-sized hand flapped ineffectually at her as she reversed the sword and drove it with all her strength into the base of its skull.

The Giant convulsed, foaming the water and sand into great gushes of spray and mud. She twisted the sword savagely, stirring its brain to porridge, and it jerked once and lay still.

Edmund looked on, slack-jawed with wonder and amazement, as she tugged her sword free and charged into the melee.

But it was over. With a hideous snap, Michael broke the neck of the last Minotaur and threw its cooling corpse away. He reached down and picked up his sword as the Narnians dealt the coup-de-grace to their wounded foes. Edmund found his voice as he looked at the death-strewn beach, the sand slick with the blood of those he had lead there.

"Warlord," he croaked, "take stock of the army."


	22. A Rock in a Hard Place

**A/n** : The first song in this chapter is not my own work. It is a (slightly modified) excerpt from "Paravel" by Amberle Elessedil and is posted on . I have her permission to use this work. The tunes for the songs are imagined by the author to be vaguely similar to _I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In_ and _Jerusalem_.

**Chapter Twenty-Two : A Rock in a Hard Place**

Elizabeth squinted amid the smoky darkness of the lamp hung on the crossbar of a shattered spear skewered into the ground. She wet her hands – raw and rough and with the oil leached out of them from alcohol and harsh soap – with the brandy and teased the silk thread into a point. Her tongue protruding like it used to do when she had learned sewing at her mother's knee, she threaded the needle and pressed the point to the Dwarf's flesh. He writhed and jerked as the metal pierced his skin.

"Hold him," she said quietly. Above her, Hylonome dropped to her knees and pinned the Dwarf's arms, leaning down with all her weight. Tears – of embarrassment, perhaps, or pain – leaked from the Dwarf's eyes and dripped down his bearded cheeks as Elizabeth stitched together the six-inch gash on his chest, chipped ribs visible amid the bleeding meat.

She had lost all track of time – the sun had set and the moon had risen, but the clouds were low and lanterns were needed to continue the work. She had no idea how many wounds she had bandaged and stitched, how many slings she had made. She had long ago ceased to think about such things, her actions were automatic – moving from one casualty to another, washing wounds and dressing injuries. She felt as tired and exhausted as if she had drunk the alcohol missing from the half-empty bottle hanging by her side rather than sterilized wounds with it.

Night had fallen mere moments after the last of the Minotaurs it seemed, and that had only made fate all the crueler as the salvage operation was hampered. The straits were strewn with wreckage – spars and planks and lanyards, but bobbing on the water were casks of supplies; food, water, drink. Survivors from the first two ships stuck by the great rocks clung to fragments of wood – some conscious and paddling in, others unconscious and drifting in the waves.

Michael and Edmund had been towers of strength – she doubted if she could have found the strength to even cry after the adrenaline that had fueled her slaughter of the Giant had ebbed had it not been for them. The desolation of the battle – of the bloody beach strewn with great heavy lumps of death and, here and there, the dying writhing in their agony – was almost too much to bear. The walking wounded – drenched, tired, stranded – had simply wanted to slump down in the darkness and wait to see what dawn might bring.

Michael and Edmund had had none of it – they stripped themselves of armor and issued orders to those capable of following them. _How did Michael know I studied first-aid?_ her tired mind had asked in the first few moments, but soon she was too involved for that or any other introspection.

Shattered fragments of the ships' hulls – washed up on the shore or dragged in – too-small for any other purpose had been stacked together in great conical piles and three bonfires lit, sparking and spitting gledes into the night sky. With torches held high, Michael and Edmund lead the Dryads and larger Talking-Beasts into the water, salvaging and grabbing what they could from the flotsam and jetsam that lingered near the bay. Soon, a chain was formed between the two grounded ships that were still intact and a great pile of supplies appeared on the beach, piled haphazardly and without attention to what they were.

A perimeter of the smaller creatures who would have simply been swept away in the dark water patrolled the edges of the camp that swiftly sprang into being on the soft grass just north of the beach. Fauns set to work with a will, little shovels flashing in the firelight, digging a trench set with stakes trimmed from the shattered bones of the ships.

Near the fires, Dwarfs stirred great masses of sand in make-shift cauldrons made of the plastrons and plackarts of the Minotaurs, heating it and drying it out. Other Dwarfs sat meditatively nearby, arms and armor lying before them, scrubbing the salt-water and blood away with handfuls of scorched sand and re-oiling the metal to guard against rust.

It was the very darkest and deadest part of the night – the part when the very idea of sun appeared absurd and when any sources of light did not illuminate but merely framed the stygian darkness and showed it for what it was, when bones themselves not only froze but chilled anything warm they touched – that the final barrel and drifting orphan was dragged ashore, that the final piece of armor was cleaned and polished and the final wound stitched. With an effort, Elizabeth stood and stretched – her hands were cold and stiff with dried blood and creaking as she moved them. By the largest of the fires Michael and Edmund stood with Pearl, their faces drawn and filthy in the half-light. Elizabeth and Hylonome staggered over to them, tripping on their own feet and weariness. All around them, soldiers looked up from their now completed work, perhaps wondering what was to be done now.

Elizabeth looked at Edmund and realized everything he was was haemorrhaging from him. He had managed to hold the army together and stop it collapsing into a lawless mob of terrified and defeated creatures, but he had been unable to do the same for himself. His confidence had been swept off his face by the waves that had scattered his forces. A crushing sense of responsibility settled on her.

Somewhere, a Faun began to pluck at a harp.

Elsewhere, a Dwarf began to tap percussion on a broken barrel. A flute started up, high and haunting and clear. Gradually, other noises joined them – a fiddle, more drums, another harp – and resolved themselves into a slow, sedate, lilting melody that somehow reminded Elizabeth of _I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In_. And then the Dryads' voices – like wind through reeds – and the voices of the Dwarfs – deep and resonating like their mines – and the chattering of the birds, and the barks of the dogs, the howls of the wolves, and the growls of the bears and the voice of every living thing that had been given one by Aslan began;

_A bowshot from the ocean waves,  
>Where songs of mermen stir the air,<br>A green and scarlet banner waves  
>From pinnacles of gold.<br>And thrones of marble glitter there,  
>Agleam with stones from secret caves,<br>For four they are, and wrought with care,  
>From prophesies of old.<em>

_Our Emperor's name is widely known,  
>From Harfang to the southern towns,<br>And mercy he has often shown,  
>With penance in his eyes.<br>The convict trembles at his frowns,  
>His message-birds are nightly flown,<br>The law and scepter of the crowns,  
>King Edmund—called the Wise.<em>

_A bowshot from the ocean waves,  
>Where sunshine dries a lion's tears,<br>And children change a land of slaves,  
>To heroes brave and bold.<br>Their valor every ally cheers,  
>And evil ne'er their anger braves<br>And ever for a thousand years,  
>Their legends will be told.<em>

Somehow, the darkness didn't seem quite so oppressive. Somehow, the night didn't seem to press so close. Edmund swallowed the lump in his throat and closed his eyes over the pressure behind them. "Where do they find the _strength_?" he whispered.

"Their King," said Elizabeth flatly, taking a slug of the brandy. She winced as it sluiced out the wounds on her tongue. She offered him the bottle. He took it.

"I just lead half of them to their deaths." Edmund's voice was gray and flat and final. Around him, the song had slipped slower, into a Narnian funeral hymn.

_Oh, do not mourn  
>for those who've died.<br>Shed no tears  
>and your grief hide.<br>To Aslan's land  
>they've come at last.<br>Weep not for them,  
>their pain is past.<em>

_They shall go east  
>to find the Sun,<br>taking the paths  
>that swiftly run<br>to Aslan's land.  
>Know this is true;<br>weep not for them,  
>they'll weep for you.<em>

Hylonome shook her right forefoot – the shoe was loose and it rattled. The noise was enough to drag attention to her. "I think I speak for us all, sire, when I say you didn't lead us to our deaths – we followed you on the adventure Aslan sent us." Edmund was only half-listening, his attention more on the lyrics of the hymn.

"Narnian fatalism," he muttered. Hylonome shrugged.

"Perhaps, sire – and maybe I speak out of turn. But you're my King – by gift of Aslan, by prescription, by election and by conquest. You are a Son of Adam – I don't pretend to be a clever Centaur, but I know this; Narnia is not a Man's country, but it is country for a Man to be King of. Aslan put that crown on your head; it'll take more than the deaths of an army to knock it off."

There were no other native Narnians nearby to tell Hylonome she was perhaps sailing close to the wind, and so – after closing her eyes and remembering the Lion – she plowed on. "All of us would've died to end the Everwinter – every last one! - but most of us never even got the chance to try! We're all young, sire – and you gave us the chance fight like our daddies did!" Edmund's head snapped up.

"This crusade was my folly, Companion – your blood is on my hands." Hylonome snorted.

"No, your majesty, it is not," she neighed. She tossed her head in derision. "You think we came here because we were ordered? You think came here because you told us? We came here because we _believe_. We believe in Narnia, and we believe in Aslan, and – most importantly – we believe in _you_." She paused and then cried, "Maybe you should start doing the same!"

"Enough!" snapped Edmund, leaping to his feet, a flash of anger clear on his face as his sword sparkled from its scabbard. Elizabeth's breath caught in her throat as Hylonome stiffened, realizing she had stepped out of line far too far and – perhaps – what she had been taught about humans was not entirely true. "Kneel," hissed Edmund to the frozen Centauride. Amid shocked and horrified silence, Hylonome did, folding her elegant limbs with barely a tremble and bowing her head.

Edmund raised his sword, and lightly tapped her on each shoulder with the flat. "For valor in defense of the State, Crown and People of the Empire of Narnia – and for telling Kings when they are wrong – I dub thee Lady Hylonome of the Order of the Table. That is the last blow thou shalt receive unanswered." He paused and smiled. "Rise, Lady."

Trembling with the backwash of excitement and fear, and limping on her right forefoot, the newly-minted Knight did so. "With . . .with the Grand Master's permission . . ." she tentatively began, "can I go get my shoe looked at?" Edmund laughed.

"Yes indeed, Lady. And get some food and sleep – I will need you scout this island as soon as the sun is up. You do not lie and so falsehoods will be obvious to you – I wish to know the lay of the land. This island is small – you can cover it by noon." Hylonome bowed her head, and then smirked cheekily.

"I'll cost you a sugarlump, sire," she quipped. Edmund gave a sigh of mock resignation and reached into his pocket. She scooped the white square off his palm with her smiling lips.

As Hylonome limped away towards a Dwarfish smith, Edmund turned to Michael. "Warlord? How much of the army do we have left?" Michael faced the King at casual and terrible ease.

"The troops on the two ships which were sunk in deep water went straight into the sea, your majesty – and more fell from the ships in the waves and when the third ship was hit. Our casualties among those who actually reached the shore for the battle were proportionately heavy – but few reached the shore in time for the fight." He paused. "All told, there are two hundreds and seventy six soldiers left alive and accounted for – some score of those are seriously wounded and may not be in any condition to fight for some time. There are fifty-nine corpses – all others are either Dryads who leave no bodies, or are missing in action; a great number of those are Dwarfs and Fauns who were wearing armor"

"And have drowned in the sea?" asked Edmund bleakly. Michael nodded.

"It is possible that some few will have been swept to shore elsewhere. As of this moment, sire, your army consists of two and half hundred swords." Edmund nodded, accepting the bad news with a slump of his shoulders. _Half his army lost . . ._

"Yer majesty," said Pearl softly. With an effort, Edmund swept defeat off his face and turned to her, ready to apologize for the loss of her ships and crew. "I don' mean ter speak out o' turn, but . . ."

"Commodore, the Crown of Narnia will compensate you for the loss of your ships and offers . . . whatever we can in return for the lives of your crew." Edmund's face was a perfect picture of contrition. "We offer unconditional apologies for . . ." Pearl plowed over him.

"Ah, yer run yer tides and yer takes yer chances – these fellas knew the risks." Pearl appeared to be unconcerned with such matters which highlighted to Edmund just how little he knew of the Galmians. "It shou' be us apolergizin' ter ye fer bein' unable ter provide yer wi' ships as we agreed. Still, that's not what I was talkin' about – how many o' those beasties do ye think islands this size can support?" Edmund looked at her as if this had not occurred to him. Nor had it occurred to Elizabeth – it was a nice feeling to realize creatures who were emblematic and more of Sins still needed to eat. Edmund looked at Michael. The older man nodded.

"The Commodore makes an excellent point, your majesty – the Lone Islands cannot support a huge number of Minotaurs. Even with fishing it will be difficult to feed a large number." He paused. "I think this encounter is a victory in more than the Pyrrhic sense." Edmund might have answered him, but he noticed movement approaching the fire.

It was a Faun, bearing on a scrap of blanket the body of Cornelius, now stiff and at peace in death. One of the raven's wings was splinted with the broken shaft of one of Elizabeth's arrows and lacy black scraps of silk from her underwear; an _agent provocateur_ wrapped in the same. Edmund's shoulders slumped as he saw him.

"I am sorry, sire," the Faun was saying, "Despite the Daughter of Eve's best efforts, his wounds were too great." Elizabeth hung her head. "I think he had suffered more than was obvious, milady – do not be too despondent." Edmund drew the Faun closer and lay his hand on the still-warm body of the bird, a prayer behind his closed eyes, and then dismissed him.

Pearl thought what she felt emanating from the young King was grief. She gave her extravagant bow and moved away to where the remains of her crews were either slumbering or drinking themselves to slumber. As soon as she had gone. Edmund's face hardened.

"I had intended to question Cornelius concerning what he saw on his trip over the Islands," he said softly, his brows drawn together in thought. "A trebuchet is not something easily hidden from the air. Cornelius was one of Hedera's foremost spies – he had been to the Islands before and it is from him that much of our intelligence comes."

"You think he lied?" asked Elizabeth, aghast. The black and white version of the mythological world was blurring at the edges, the simplicity fading to shades of uncertain gray. Edmund shook his head judiciously.

"I don't know what he did," he said carefully, "and now I never will; dead men tell no tales but they also tell no lies. To suggest that a Narnian would deliberately lead other Narnians into an ambush is a charge of great treachery – but it would not be unknown, as well I know. It is certainly possible he was in league with the rulers of the Islands – promised power and favors in return for this. But I will not proceed on those suspicions as certainty, I will not tarnish his memory." Edmund paused, considering. "I am also mindful Varden appeared more ready for our presence in the Lantern Waste than I thought he would; potential spies were mentioned then – and I think my suspicions were not unfounded." He turned to Michael and Elizabeth. "I beg of you, do not mention these misgivings to the rest of the army – their morale stands on a knife-edge as it is. To consider there may have been a traitor among us would be disastrous." Michael gave his curt nod.

"Yes, of course," said Elizabeth, "but what if there are more?" Edmund shook his head in resignation.

"Then we will find out when they tip their hand – I will not run a witch-hunt in my army, Elizabeth. But it is for this reason I send Hylonome to scout tomorrow – she is so guileless and honest I can trust whatever she says. Her loyalty to Aslan and myself are one and the same in her mind – I have no fears there."

A lonely silence dominated now – there was nothing to do save sleep, but all knew that the sky would be blushing to dawn in a few short hours. Edmund bowed at Michael and Elizabeth and began to walk around the little knots of the Narnians, speaking with them, offering comfort to the wounded, support to the grief-stricken and an ear to all. As soon as he was out of earshot, Elizabeth slumped down onto an upturned barrel and gave an exhausted sigh. Michael skewered his sword in the ground and crouched down beside her as weakness and defeat settled on her like a blanket.

"I can't go on," said Elizabeth, her face buried in her hands and her shoulders rippling with tremors that threatened to become tearful shudders, "Edmund supports the army, I support Edmund – who supports me?"

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start leaning," said Michael quietly. "Don't just sit there on the verge of tears whining your problems to me." Her head snapped up, a rebuke on her lips, her tears forgotten, strength flowing back into her frame – and then she laughed.

"How do you do it, Michael?" she asked in wonder. "How do you always cut to the heart of the matter? How come you're always right, even when I wish you weren't?" She leaned her head sideways and rested it on his shoulder, closing her eyes and feeling her heartrate slow. Somehow, the smooth planes of his battered armor felt as welcoming as a feather pillow and the mailed arm that curled around her shoulders as warming as a goose-down duvet. "I've relied on you since I came to Narnia, I've drawn strength from you whenever I needed it." She sat up and faced him fully. "Where do you get your strength from? You don't seem to rely on anything but yourself."

Michael's eyes were faraway and he ran his hands absently, almost lovingly, over the reversed hilt and quillons of his sword skewered into the ground by the fire. "You would be quite wrong," he said softly. "Things made by good carpenters are always strong."

There was silence for the next few minutes save the crackle of the fire and the endless crash of the surf on the beach – most of the Narnians were sleeping now, snatching a few hours before dawn. Edmund was standing near another bonfire, speaking with the pack of Narnian wolves, who had remained awake and alert. Elizabeth and Michael walked over to him, greeting the soldiers easily and being answered with deferential lupine nods.

"Well," said Hedera, slinking into the circle of firelight and making the humans jump. "That landing could have gone better." Edmund cast his eyes down and remained silent in his guilt. Elizabeth rounded on the Dryad.

"It could also have gone worse," she said defensively. "Edmund was not to know that there was an ambush here – scouts were sent, including your spies." Hedera shrugged.

"What my _agents_ find out or not is generally irrelevant, Daughter of Eve," the Dryad said with her crimson eyes narrowed, "for we are so often disallowed to act upon it. This could have been ended with poison - the Governor of the Lone Islands could have been killed. Regardless," she plowed on before Edmund could utter a rebuke, "your friendship with _Edmund_ hardly makes your judgment impartial and, even if it was, what you think of it does not matter. The mood of the army - or the survivors - does; what they think - rightly or wrongly - determines how well this crusade will progress."

"And what is the mood, Dryad?" growled Edmund, gaining strength from the hatred directed at his race. Hedera was useful, she was loyal to Narnia and to Aslan - but he doubted her loyalty to him and his family. It was hard sometimes to not see her general animosity to Adam's flesh and bone as a personal hatred of him - which was, he knew, of course, not the case. She had pledged loyalty to Aslan's monarchs in spite of their humanity.

Of course, he reflected, so many more Narnians had done so _because_ of their humanity.

"Fortunately for you, Sire, the mood is still good - the army is ready to gone on, despite this set-back. Of course, that may change . . ." At Edmund's feet, the wolves growled. Edmund stilled them with a gesture.

"Are you _threatening_ me, spymistress?" he said steel-softly. She laughed merrily, taking the wind out of his sails and making him feel like a paranoid fool.

"Threaten you, your majesty?" She looked genuinely amused. "Sire, how could I threaten you? You are ordained and crowned by Aslan - you are the rightful ruler of Narnia and the Islands. You always will be, sire - as the foal said, it will take more than the death of an army to take that away. You will always be the King of Narnia, even if you lead us all to our deaths." She paused, and then her face assumed an expression of grave concern. "Are you so worried about threats that you see them even from I, your majesty? I was unaware of things being so bad that you saw polite disagreement as being treason."

With any other of the siblings - with any other _man_ - this might have worked. But Hedera - while a master of her craft - was simply not in the same league as Edmund. While she needed to resort to politics and appeals to the populace, to playing on worries and fears to get what she wanted, Edmund could simply be honest and direct and get the job done. Leaning close to her ear so that none could hear but her, he placed a heavy mailed fist on her shoulder. "Dryad," he said quietly, "if I thought you a traitor I would not waste so much time on words. I would strike your head from your shoulders and burn your vine to warm my bath. You know this to be true, and you also know that I need not have proof nor even belief. As you yourself have said, I am ordained by Aslan himself - my suspicion is enough. Yet, I have striven throughout my Kingship - short though it may have been - to grow beyond the minimum required of the Monarchs of the Cair and into a true justice that Aslan would desire. Pray do not task this poor Son of Adam with unnecessary temptations." He took his hand off her shoulder and stepped back. Hedera continued with more caution; Edmund would have welcomed honesty.

"Your majesty, I mean no threat to you. But the mood of the army may change - half of them are dead, killed in a senseless ambush that accomplished nothing for us. We are on an island we did not wish to land on, without a fleet and with limited supplies. Frankly, I am amazed the morale of the army has remained as high as it has after this disaster." Her twig-like brows drew together in puzzlement. "I would have expected the mutterings to be greater than they are." Edmund smiled.

"It is indeed fortunate for us all that you are wrong, Hedera," he said icily, "but I do not think discussing how dire our situation is, especially with the pardonable exaggeration you make, avails us any. I am more interested in knowing how we came to be in this situation." Hedera's eyes narrowed once more in puzzlement.

"With respect, your majesty, you lead us into an ambush." Elizabeth sprang - not to his defense, for there was none; his authority was absolute and so was his responsibility - but rather to address an issue Hedera seemed to have missed.

"But what was the ambush doing there?" she asked. "Who knew we were coming? And how did they know we would land here? This ambush was not a small thing - it would take time to set up. There are no trees on Felimath - so all the timber for that trebuchet, not to mention the rocks to launch, would have to come from Doorn. And why go to the trouble of hiding it from the air unless for a specific ambush of people who have aerial scouts?" Elizabeth smiled inwardly as she realized Hedera would _love_ to be able to use the potential traitor – for it was obvious she had come to the same conclusion – to make capital, but was unable to do so as it would backfire on her. She looked around the group standing around the fire. "How did the Islanders know that _Narnians_ were coming?"

Hedera shrugged, the issue did not seem to present an insurmountable difficulty to her, but there was a suggestion of reluctance to voice her solution as it simply highlighted what they saw as her own prejudice - justified though it was. "Daughter of Eve," she said quietly, "you do not know - for you did not, as his majesty and his family did, arrive at the end of the war against the Witch - what happened when Narnia was freed from the Everwinter. The country was opened up to the humans again and – although none save the Royal Family have come to dwell here – there has been traffic between Narnia and human realms; Archenland and Telmar, in the main. It is entirely possible that one or two - despite the stringent efforts of my _spies_ - came from the Lone Islands; a land which was under the thumb of the Witch and with humans willingly co-operating with her." Elizabeth drew her mouth into a hard line, realizing that Cornelius' treachery – _dear Aslan, she was judging him already_ – cut both ways; she could not mention it either, not even as a counter to the accusations Hedera was making.

"You are suggesting this is the fault of humans?" she asked in a voice as silver as her armor Hedera smiled easily.

"Daughter of Eve, I am saying that most likely people to have betrayed our plans are people who came to Narnia with the intention of spying on and betraying us. The fact they are humans are entirely co-incidental; your paranoia serves us not at all." Hedera turned to Edmund before Elizabeth could snap back. "You see, however, your majesty, why I say that the mood of the army might change? Not only have they suffered much through errors - avoidable or not - but they have also been betrayed, and possibly by humans. Rumors to this effect are already circulating, sire."

Edmund faced her. "It is indeed fortunate, then, that the loyal Narnians will not tar all humans with the same brush - the inhabitants certainly have practice of not judging races as groups after the treason of the Dryads during the Everwinter, for example." Hedera straightened like a tree before the onset of a drought, and then bowed and moved away. A second later, the veterans sensed the humans wanted to be alone and withdrew.

"I don't trust her," said Elizabeth obviously after a moment or two. Edmund laughed softly, tension leaking from him.

"Neither do I, which is why she is my spymaster," he said. "She hates humans - she always will. She has suffered too much - real or imagined - because of us. She lived too long blaming us for the rise of the Witch. But, she is a loyal Narnian - loyal to Aslan to a fault. She would not move against her own people - although she will blame me and mine for every single death."

"Might she have not been responsible for the treachery that lead to the ambush?" Elizabeth asked softly, unwilling to make any firmer accusation. Edmund smiled.

"If it had been you and I alone on those ships, then perhaps – but she would not hurt her own people. Her loyalty to Aslan is unquestioned – never forget that," he added understandably harshly. "It is too easy to consider her hatred of us a hatred of Aslan and Narnia, it is not."

"You know she will fan those rumors of human treachery, Edmund," Elizabeth said quietly, "She will try to drive a wedge between you and your people." Edmund shrugged.

"Let her – it is more than likely true that there are human spies from the Lone Islands in Narnia. As hard as it may be for you to understand, free-speech is not treason, even if it is against us and based on lies. The Crown of Narnia will defend her and support her, even if she acknowledges our authority grudgingly and speaks against us." He paused and sighed, "That is what we are – the rightful rulers of those whom some consider should have no King but Aslan. But that will not hurt me - she only drives a wedge between herself and them. The Narnians waited one hundred years for human deliverers. Those who fought and died in the Everwinter, those who resisted the Witch and marched with my brother and I at Beruna believe in the prophecy."

"And Hedera does not?" Elizabeth was shocked. Edmund sighed deeply.

"Sometimes, I wonder. She believes in Aslan, and she believes that Aslan came back and freed Narnia - which is true. Peter and I did nothing he could not have done alone." He ran his hands over his dirty face, seeming to wash it in the dawn beginning to pour rose light over the just visible hills. Hylonome would be setting off on her scouting mission. "The prophecy was spoken by Queen Swanwhite as she lay dying on the Stone Table under the Witch's knife." Edmund tapped a place on the left side of Elizabeth's cuirass where the metal was a very slightly different finish or tone; a repair. The woman shivered as she realized she was wearing armor someone had died in and made to ask Edmund how the suit had been recovered, but the King was continuing to talk. "I think Hedera doubts its necessity - I think she thinks, perhaps, Aslan did not need us. Of course," reflected Edmund, "he didn't _need_ us in the way one might like to think. But I believe Hedera feels the native Narnians _would_ have won the war without us as Aslan was there. She sees Queen Swanwhite's prophecy as perhaps nothing more than a political move to ensure her race would rule Narnia again, or perhaps as a later invention of the blood of Adam."

"But, but . . ." Elizabeth was amazed such a thing could be thought. "The four thrones at the Cair? The fact there were no humans to invent the prophecy?" He sighed more heavily than before.

"I know - but she remembers the rise of the Witch, in which humans were not entirely blameless. And that colors everything she is and thinks." Edmund shrugged. "And I think the situation here on the Islands only makes it worse; she sees the humans here as simply fulfilling what she thinks she knows of us. She sees myself and my family as the exceptions rather than the rule."

"I think you are," said Elizabeth softly, melancholy over her race settling on her. "None of us are perfect, Edmund - humans betray and lie and kill and cheat and do so many terrible things."

"I am no different," said Edmund softly, "I was a traitor too."

"Humans can reach the highest heights and plumb the lowest depths," said Michael abruptly, startling the King and Elizabeth. "No other creature can range quite so far - why else do the Minotaurs here obey the humans if not because they are more evil than they could ever manage? Why else," he added in almost a whisper directed at Elizabeth, "did _He_ use Peter as the foundation for His greatest accomplishment?"

Elizabeth was about to say that Aslan had used all four of them, but then realized Michael was not talking about Narnia. Even now, a rebuke was on her lips and resistance in her mind if not her heart, but before she could say or think anything the clattering of hooves down the slope of the hill preemptively interrupted her.

It was Hylonome, and with her came a stranger.


	23. Mistaken Indemnity

**Chapter Twenty-Three : Mistaken Indemnity**

The stranger was dressed in rough wool and sheepskin and his body was thin and wiry, his face – where it could be seen behind the unkempt beard - purpled by the weather. The unfortunate man was being pretty-much frog-marched down the hillside by the Centauride, her strong hand on his shoulder preventing him from going anywhere. Edmund straightened and shook the cobwebs from his mind. "Who is this, Lady?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, I haven't scouted the whole island," blurted Hylonome - this much was obvious, given it was but an hour after dawn. "But I found this shepherd – I told him the King of Narnia was here, and I thought you'd want to speak with him." She paused, and looked at the trembling man. "He seemed very frightened – and I think he's scared of me," she added confidentially, but in a tone that most of the army could hear.

Edmund smiled broadly at the shepherd, pleased to be able to speak to one of the Islanders he had come to rescue. From behind him, Elizabeth stepped forward, echoing his smile.

The result was startling.

The man shrieked and fell to his knees, an agony of terror consuming him. "You didn't tell me _She_ was here, Monster!" he yelled, his voice shrill with fear.

"Who's _she_?" asked Hylonome, nudging him gently with her foot. "And don't call me 'Monster'." She looked up at Edmund. "He keeps doing that," she said plaintively, "will you make him stop, please?"

Elizabeth crouched down and tried to get the man to stand – it was clear Edmund was uncomfortable with such obeisance. "He's probably never seen anything like you before," she said reasonably. "Don't kneel," she said desperately as the man tried to get away from her while maintaining his prostration.

"I'm sorry, your majesty!" the unfortunate man whimpered, his whole body shaking. Elizabeth stared at him as if he were mad.

"Do I look like a Queen?" she answered, forgetting for a second she was wearing a Queen's armor. The man flung himself flat on his face.

"Don't kill me, your Empressness!" he sobbed. If he could have been flatter on the floor than he was, Elizabeth suspected he would have been. She stood up and stepped back, shrugging at Edmund. The King shook his head and sighed deeply.

"Hylonome," he said briskly, "get him on his feet." The Centauride reached down and grabbed the man under the arms and – with an easy jerk of her body – hauled him upright. His face immediately assumed a look of terrified shock that would have been comic in any other circumstance.

"Please don't kill me, Empress Jadis!" he whimpered, "please don't kill me!"

The penny dropped.

"You think I'm _Jadis_?" she asked in rage, her hands on her hips and looking – for a second – startlingly like her. "You think I'm the White Witch?" The unfortunate man gulped.

"I never called you that, and I have never moved against you . . . directly," he stammered. He screwed up his courage and added, "Although if her Imperial Majesty would hear the grievances of the Islanders regarding her Governor, we would be most grateful." Elizabeth waved her hand dismissively to shut him up.

"I'm not the Queen of Narnia – he's the King!" She pointed at Edmund, who inclined his head gravely. The man tried to fall at the boy's feet, but Hylonome was having none of it.

"Your majesty," the man whimpered, "I had no idea that your royal mother had abdicated in favor of you. If you would hear our grievances . . ."

It was the supreme self-control that made him King Edmund the _Just_ that stopped him laughing in the poor man's terrified face. For a second, he considered how Peter might have dealt with this – it was not pretty. Edmund allowed himself a thin smile.

"Loyal subject of the crown of Narnia," he said firmly, raising his hand and voice for silence. "The lady you see before you is neither my mother nor Jadis the White Witch. I am King Edmund and am no relation to Jadis, known to some as the White Witch, former self-styled Queen of Narnia and Empress of the Lone Islands. She was a usurper and a regicide, and her rule was illegitimate. She is dead, killed by the great lion Aslan, son of the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea." He held the man's eyes in his and when he saw understanding – although perhaps not acceptance or belief – continued. "My siblings and I rule Narnia now and I have come to the Lone Islands to set you free from those who rule in the Witch's name." The man's puzzled gaze drifted from Edmund's face to Elizabeth's and back again. He licked his lips.

"You have come to get rid of the Governor?"

"Why else would I stand on a beach covered in dead Minotaurs and with an army at my back?" asked Edmund with a hint of exasperation. The man's brows drew together in puzzlement.

"But why are you in the company of . . ." His eyes roved over the Dryads and Fauns, looking fearfully up at Hylonome. He shivered. "_Monsters?_" Hylonome shook him, none too gently.

"Will you stop saying that?" she snapped. Edmund held up a hand.

"Hylonome! Don't hurt him – he's never seen anything non-human that hasn't been in league with the Witch." Hylonome pouted, but stopped rattling the shepherd.

"Well, I hadn't seen _any_ humans until two years ago – I don't go around calling you all 'Monster'," she said petulantly. Edmund gestured for her to put him down. She did so, by the simple expedient of letting go. He slumped to the floor with a sympathetic wince from Edmund.

"Why did you think I was Jadis?" asked Elizabeth, genuinely surprised. The man looked up at her with shock.

"I am sorry, my lady," the man stammered, "but when the Mons . . . when I was told the King of Narnia was here, and I saw your appearance was as Jadis had been described, I assumed that . . ."

"How was Jadis described to you?" interrupted Edmund, "And by whom?" The man's gaze snapped back to him.

"She . . . she was described as tall and dark of hair, dressed in silver and white, pale of skin and beautiful beyond comprehension." Hylonome nodded.

"It's a good match," she said without thinking. And then gulped and put her hand to her mouth. "That is, I didn't mean you looked like the Witch," she said quickly. "Not that you're not beautiful. Erm, that is . . ." Edmund snapped his fingers.

"Hylonome. Scouting." She was gone in a heartbeat and a clatter of hooves. "And who described the Witch thus?" he asked. The man stood slowly and nervously, finally beginning to realize he was not going to loose his head or be turned to stone.

"Such a description is known all over the Islands, sire," he said, "although Jadis herself has never been here – not in my or my father's time, certainly, and there are no legends or tales of her having ever come here. The Governor rules in her name and has done for one hundred years, since he arrived with his Monsters and enchantments." Edmund nodded.

"Bring food and wine for our guest," he said to a Faun who stood nearby. As the creature rushed away to obey, Edmund gestured to a barrel and bade the shepherd sit down. He followed suit as – around him – Elizabeth and a few of the Narnian veterans sat. Hedera hovered at the edge of the group and Michael stood at relaxed attention. The Faun returned, bearing a plate with some bread and cheese on it and a flagon of wine. The shepherd eyed them suspiciously for a few moments.

With a sigh, Edmund reached forward and lifted the flagon from the shepherd's hands and took a mouthful. He broke off a piece of cheese and a crumb of bread and swallowed them too. He handed the flagon back. "Friend," he said patiently, "I am your ally – you must believe me." He looked around at the Talking Beasts, Dwarfs and Fauns at his feet. "I realize things are strange to you and it may be difficult for you to accept me. But if you would be free from the harsh rule of the Governor of the Islands, you must trust me and believe I am here to help you and all decent inhabitants of the Islands." He sighed. "It would be best if you gave me an account of yourself and what you know of these lands."

There was no reason for the shepherd to trust Edmund - the dead Minotaurs and the army around him meant little to a man who had been lied to and brutalized all his life. But it was clear to Elizabeth he _did_ trust Edmund - although exactly why she could not say. Despite the fact she prided herself on having survived on her own and by her own skills and resources, she realized she hadn't - not really, not like this man and his family must have done. Maybe, at that point, one gained a clearer sense of who could be trusted and who could not - or perhaps he was simply so desperate for support and help he would have trusted anyone who asked for trust. Regardless of the reasons behind it, the shepherd – with many a tremulous glance around him and at the strange creatures by his side and at his feet – smiled nervously and began.

"My name is Publius, your majesty, I am a shepherd of this Island. There are few people on Felimath, all of us shepherds except those who live in the village – down the coast a ways. We shepherds live in fear of the Governor and his Monsters – in the village there are a few creatures, together with some of the people the Governor favors There is no way for us to leave Felimath – we have no ships, there are no trees to make any. We must trade our mutton and wool for grain with the Governor's troops in the village, and often we go hungry for they will not give us a fair price."

"Are you watched here on Felimath?" asked Hedera. The man started horribly at the sight and sound of the Dryad, which gave Hedera enough time to ask another question. "Do the Monsters come and attack you? Kill you? Hurt you?" The man shook his head, shaking so badly it was unclear what was tremor and what was him saying "No".

"N . . n . . . no, my . . . _lady_," he managed. "There is nowhere for us to go, nothing for us to do. The Governor cares not for us – we have to provide him with mutton and wool or we will starve. But he does not hate us enough to destroy us."

"Or he does not care about you enough to even give you the attention of harm," sneered Hedera.

"Pray continue," said Edmund. "Tell me of the Governor – who is he? What is his name?" The man shook his head.

"I do not know," he stammered. "He is simply 'The Governor' – he rules in the name of Jadis with the help of his Monsters and some humans whom he favors. There are those who are closest to him – they have powers of enchantment and dark magics; we live in great fear of them. They dwell in the city of Narrowhaven on Doorn, guarded by their Monsters and some soldiers who have decided to work for him."

"In return for _what_?" asked Hedera silverly. Publius turned to her.

"Money? Privilege?" he suggested. "The things men crave?" He turned to Edmund as Hedera snorted in vindication. "Life is very hard here, sire – there are many who succumb to temptation and side with the dark power of the Governor and the Witch."

"It is the way of humans," said Hedera. As Elizabeth's head snapped up and she glared at the Dryad, the tree-woman smiled. "Deny it, Daughter of Eve, if you can," she smiled.

"I do not," said Elizabeth flatly, "but it is the strength of the humans here that will set these captives free and bring the good news of Aslan to the poor and downtrodden." She set her jaw and might have said more, but decided now was not the time. "I am sorry, Publius – please continue."

"The people on Doorn have it very hard, my lady," the shepherd continued. "The greater part of the people live there, some of them in Narrowhaven in terrible conditions, but the most of them in little villages in the valleys of the island. Doorn is wooded and forested, and they are kept working felling trees for sale and farming to make food for the Governor and his followers. The Monsters and soldiers come often and take food from them – and sometimes they take the people as slaves or . . . worse." He shepherd gulped, not wishing to elaborate. "There are fortified castles and towers all over Doorn – the Governor knows he must keep the people in line, and all are manned by his soldiers and the Monsters."

"What of Avra?" asked Michael. "You say nothing of Avra." The man turned to the warlord.

"Sir, Avra is inhospitable – rocky and very harsh in the main. It is battered by storm winds from the east. There are a few people living there in one or two hamlets on the western shore, with soldiers and Monsters to enforce the Governor's will. But . . ." He swallowed nervously, wondering how much to tell these strangers. He looked into Edmund's eyes and saw something there – something he felt he could trust or, if he could not, then there was nothing in the world _to_ trust. "There is a resistance on Avra, humans who have escaped and who live on the far eastern shore. They have few resources, and are not strong enough to even meet the Governor's forces on Avra – farming is impossible there, and life is very hard. We send them supplies from time to time – woolen clothes and what food we can spare. We have some rafts – very rude and crude, they can carry one or two men and a small cargo. They leave from the easternmost point of Felimath – the rafts are hidden there, sunk underwater with rocks."

"So the people _wish_ to be set free?" asked Edmund. Publius nodded.

"Yes, your majesty – but only some of us are prepared to do anything about it. The Governor is a harsh and cruel man – his punishment will not stop with the man who has angered him, you risk your family opposing him. Many of us are frightened – we are _all_ frightened – but there are those of us who long for freedom and deliverance."

Publius paused, and then continued. "Sire, the stories of King Gale are told here daily – of how he saved us from the Dragon centuries ago. The Governor has forbidden any tales of Narnia except those about Jadis – in which she is the rightful ruler – but we remember in secret. We remember our loyalty to King Gale. Sire, if you truly come here to set us free, then the people will rally around you.

"The Governor knows this – his heralds have announced your coming. They call you an invasion force from Narnia, but a force lead by a usurper against Queen Jadis, one she drove out of Narnia. Everyone on the Islands has been ordered to resist the invasion on pain of death – or worse."

"He thinks Jadis is still alive?" asked Elizabeth. An old Owl shook his head.

"Unlikely," he towooed. "A sorcerer would know of his mistress' death. But he is likely he is trying to keep the _myth_ of her alive. He will probably have told as few as possible about this – his lieutenants, perhaps, if they do not know themselves – and certainly not the Minotaurs and Ogres. Such brutes will be impossible for a mere human to keep in line without the terror of the Witch's name." He paused and looked at Edmund, bowing from the shoulders. "No offense"

"None taken," said Edmund, smiling at the great gray-white bird. "I agree – it is likely most of our foes believe the Witch is still alive."

"The people of the Islands certainly do, your majesty," said Publius. "But it will take more than being told she is dead to unite them against the Governor. It is clear the Governor knows the people will rally around you – he will want to crush your invasion before it starts."

"Hence the ambush," said Michael. Edmund looked at him. "That was designed to stop you dead in your tracks. The Governor was relying on the fear of his name – and that of the Witch – to make the Islanders bring you to him." Edmund rested his chin on his hand, his eyes faraway and deep in thought.

"And then what?" he asked, almost to himself. "A public execution? Destroy the people's savior in front of their eyes to crush and destroy the movement, rip out the beating heart of it and end things once and for all?" Michael nodded in agreement.

Edmund smiled - those nearby who knew him could see a plan forming in his mind. He looked over at Elizabeth, ran his eyes over her, reached up and held her hair back, and his smile widened.

"What?" asked the woman, nonplussed.

Very slowly, Edmund reached up and lifted the golden circlet off his head. He polished an imaginary speck of dust from the gleaming metal and dropped the diadem on her brow.

"Oh no," she exclaimed, "Oh no you don't."

But it was too late - the crown fitted perfectly.


	24. Treachery

**Chapter Twenty-Four : Treachery**

"And what," asked the Minotaur, its bovine face enveloped in the condensing stench of its own blood-stained breath, "do we have here, slave?"

The village – the only urban habitation on Felimath – towards which the shepherds were herding their captives was an ugly collection of squat buildings made of pale, damp bricks badly laid. The ground was a churned morass of mud and strewn with rotting sheep carcasses, thrown there by the village's monstrous inhabitants – the Ogres and Minotaurs that were standing around, flanked by a number of human soldiers in dark livery and patch-work armor

The Governor's soldiers were waiting for the regular tribute of mutton and wool; expecting to see the packed greasy mass of white fluff trotting towards the village stockade on tottering black legs. And so to see the sheep replaced by a score or so creatures with their hands tied or with rope halters around their necks, bruised and battered and smirched with blood, every eye downcast and every head bent and every foot tripping and weary, was surprising.

Publius – with scarcely a tremor of his guilt showing – jabbed Edmund hard in the back of the knee with his crook. His hands tied behind him with rough twine, the King crashed to his knees and then onto his face, sending up a spray of mud. "Pr . . . prisoners, my lord," the shepherd said uncertainly. Around him, other shepherds tugged on ropes that were normally used for penning in their charges and jerked forward the wounded Narnians. The Minotaur's slack mouth parted like a bloodless wound.

"Prisoners, slave?" it rumbled. "And where did you find them? And who are they?" Sweeping its eyes over the motley collection of creatures – most of them seemed to be nothing more than _animals_, but a few were clearly stunted Dwarfs or those little goat-footed freaks the Fauns – it felt it knew exactly what they were. The Minotaur reached down with a gigantic black hand tipped with filthy chipped nails and grabbed Edmund by the upper arm, hauling the boy upright. He was still in armor, but his clothes were torn and muddy and his lip was split – probably the result of his headlong plunge into the mud. He spat in the Minotaur's face.

"Coward! Beast!" he snarled, "Untie my hands and give me a sword if you dare!" Beneath a circlet of ivy leaves twisted around his brow, his eyes were undefeated.

The Minotaur bellowed in rage and raised its knee sharply, driving Edmund's stomach down onto it. With a flick of its arm, it sent the near-unconscious human crashing into the stone wall of one of the village houses. He bounced off the wall, twitched once and lay still.

The Minotaur gave him no more mind, stepping forwards and grabbing a Dwarf by the tunic. Ignoring his grunt of pain as his wounded arm was bashed, the monster hauled the Dwarf level with its eyes. "Narnians?" it snarled, staring at Publius.

"Aye, aye, my lord," stammered the shepherd. "They landed on the Island last night and attacked the Governor's soldiers. The Narnian traitors prevailed, but they were sore wounded and most of them were slain. We managed to capture these few, but there are still some left here on the Island." The Minotaur grunted with satisfaction and tossed the Dwarf down into the mud. He landed with a sickening thud.

"You captured these?" grunted a flabby Ogre. "How did mere _slaves_ prevail against warriors?" Even to the Ogre's limited intelligence, this struck a false note. Publius swallowed nervously and set his jaw.

"Sir, they were injured and tired after their fight with the soldiers of the Governor – and we pretended to be friends with them, learning of their plans. We lead these few – who were most injured – to a place where we said that they would be safe. And then we fell on them and bound them fast, bringing them here in accordance with the Governor's instructions."

"You treacherous dog, Publius!" snarled Edmund, raising himself to his knees, "I'll have you for this!" A nearby Ogre swung upwards with the butt end of a mace that crashed into his jaw, sending his head snapping backwards and him crashing down into the mud. An iron-shod boot was placed on his chest and the Ogre leaned on it with an ominous creaking of ribs. It raised the mace above its head and looked at the Minotaur.

The bull-headed horror shook its head and walked over to stare down at the supine boy. "The Narnians send children to fight us?" it snarled in question, shoving the Ogre aside to let Edmund draw an agonized breath. It grabbed him by the gorget of his battered armor, shaking him back to awareness. "Who are you, calf?"

Edmund moved his jaw experimentally, one eye bruised closed and spikes of pain running through what was clearly a hairline fracture in his check. "I am King Edmund of Narnia, beast," he said thickly, "Surrender to me and your death will be swift." The Minotaur narrowed its liquid eyes.

"_You_ are King Edmund? Well, _your majesty_, the Governor greatly desires to speak with you." It threw the boy bodily into the packed mass of wounded Narnians – herded together by goading prods from Minotaur axes and human spears – and they tumbled and fell with shrieks of pain. "Chain them," the monster snarled, "and ready the boat – I shall take them to Narrowhaven and His Sufficiency." It turned to Publius. "You have done well, slave – His Sufficiency may not be as displeased with you as your disgusting weakness merits. How many more of the traitors are there, and where are they?"

Publius swallowed and licked his lips. "There are no more than thirty, my lord," he said smoothly with just the right amount of nervousness in his voice. "I shall show your soldiers where to find them." The Minotaur nodded in satisfaction, thinking his fear of death was greater than his fear of slavery. It turned to the flabby Ogre.

"Swineblood, take the soldiers and follow this slave. Find the Narnians – kill what you cannot eat." As Swineblood the Ogre bowed its hideous head and moved to obey, the Minotaur snarled at a group of human soldiers. "You hornless runts, with me. We take the prisoners to Narrowhaven."

oOo

"Pick it up! Double time!" yelled Michael, jogging easily at the head of the column of Narnian soldiers. His orders might have been resented more than they were had he not been doing at least twice the work of any of them, tirelessly hauling on the great trolley of the trebuchet chassis piled with the larger fragments of wrecked ships. The two-hundred Narnians were marching at speed, shoving and pulling the heavy engine the five miles across the island to the easternmost point. Even with the strength of the free and the will of the crusader, it was hard and slow work. Had it not been for the knowledge each and every bruised shoulder and stitched-side was but a fragment of what their King was suffering, the hauling would have taken twice as long at the very least. Even so, it was mid-afternoon by the time the slope ahead of them slid down into the sea, smooth grass meeting rippling gray water. Michael raised his hand and curled it into a fist; _halt_. All around him, Narnians came to a panting stop, doubled over and breathing hard, ruing their armor and shouldered weapons.

The warlord's armor seemed to move as if it constrained him in order to protect the world from him, rather than the other way around, as he turned to face the pirate captain. "Commodore, get your men working." Pearl swept her sweat-slick hair off her forehead.

"A'right, yet bilge rats!" she cried, "Ye all heard the warlord! Get movin'!" The sailors – supported by the Dwarfs, hardier by far than the rest of the Narnians and for whom a five-mile jog pulling a heavy load was a morning's workout – moved forward and began to haul the heavy spars of wood off the trebuchet chassis and lay them on the soft grass, lashing them together with long lines. All around Michael, Narnians were catching their breath.

The faster, more athletic Talking Beasts – dogs and a few big cats, a couple of stags – crowded around Michael. "Orders, Warlord?" asked the largest of the stags, his massive antlers still smirched with Minotaur blood. Michael turned his unsmiling face to him.

"Fall out, Tullibardine – make sure the army is rested and ready by nightfall. We cross at moonrise."

oOo

Edmund came back to consciousness from his semi-dark, agonized dreams of concussion when filthy water was thrown in his face. He opened his eyes, his pupils contracting painfully as what seemed like blazing light pierced them, eventually making out the shadowed shapes of tall, cruel battlements against a scrubbed blue sky. For a moment, he was back in the Witch's House and he was still a traitor.

And then his head cleared as a hoof crashed into his chest, the wet snap of a breaking rib masking the Minotaur's bellowed, "Wake up, calf!"

Edmund curled like a lobster split live, coughing blood onto the hard flags of the courtyard. "Where am I, beast?" he croaked. A heavy mailed fist crashed down onto his jaw, the steel knuckle of the gauntlet splitting his lip and smashing a tooth. His eyes glazed for a second and then he moved his tongue experimentally, spitting shattered dentine and enamel out onto the courtyard floor. "You could have made it one of my milk teeth," he slurred through the thick blood filling his mouth. The Minotaur snarled and kicked again, smashing Edmund in the stomach. He felt something explode in his midsection and he vomited convulsively – a mixture of blood and bile staining the floor as he gasped, desperately trying to get oxygen back into his battered lungs and his vision dimming to gray The monster hauled him upright.

"The Governor wants to see you, boy – but you don't have to see him. Any more lip and I'll feed you your eyes." With a grunt of derision, the Minotaur tore the sprig of ivy twisted into a diadem off Edmund's bruised forehead. "What's this, calf? Narnians not strong enough to smelt gold, or have the Calormen stole it all from you?"

"Our land is . . . a land of the plants and trees . . ." gasped Edmund, "We wear . . . crowns of living leaves as a . . . tribute to that." His head slumped forward in exhaustion and pain as the Minotaur laughed.

"Faugh! You're pathetic, calf – I doubt you'll even make good sport when dying." It tossed the mangled greenery away – it rolled like a child's hoop, almost, one might have fancied, partially under its own volition, and came to rest against the trunk of a great naked oak tree that grew in the courtyard. The Minotaur turned to the human soldiers who were guarding the bound, wounded and defeated Narnians – Dwarfs and Fauns and Talking Beasts bandaged and strapped and marked with bloody bruises. "Lock 'em up – the Governor doesn't care about them." It shoved Edmund hard in the back with the butt of its ax. "Get on, slave – His Sufficiency doesn't like to be kept waiting."

The humans herded their prisoners towards the portcullis that lead to the cells and the Minotaur and Edmund began to ascend the stairs into the Governor's apartments. For a few seconds, the courtyard was quiet and still and empty.

And then the little sprig of ivy uncoiled and straightened like a worm on a hot coal, tiny tendrils budding and driving into the soil around the roots of the tree and into the cracks in that tree's bark.

_Drink deep. Eat hearty. Grow. Grow strong._

An almost imperceptible tremor ran through the tree. High above, the very tips of the thinnest branches began to curl and droop.


	25. Ambush on Felimath

**Chapter Twenty-Five : Ambush on Felimath**

There were no trees on Felimath – a few stunted and wind-dwarfed bushes were all the cover there was. Yet, as the loud, raucous column of Minotaurs and Ogres stumped through the landscape – scuffing grass and shaking the ground – they still cast their eyes from side to side, wary of ambushes.

Of course, such creatures were not famed for their perception – whatever dark power that had bred these monsters in the dawn of Narnia had not enumerated within their purpose anything clearer or more explicit than slaughter. To the eyes of the Talking Beasts and Centaurs and Fauns of Narnia such monsters were a travesty of aesthetics – but even the most prejudiced eye had to admit there was a terrible pragmatism in them; a physical expediency – if not perfection – not even the great Centaurs could match.

Yet, perhaps, that was their downfall – for porcine eyes nested behind great brows of bone and embankments of muscle, noses were drawn away from harm and into thick fortresses of flesh in blunt, ugly faces. Ears were small and stubby, flaps of toughened leather to withstand shearing blows from weapons.

Such creatures were not required to know a great deal – either through being told or their through their own experiences of the world. Shuttered, perhaps, from its beauty they saw only their own ugliness and learned nothing better and more noble than hate – pure though that hatred was.

Creatures like them had been numerous and ubiquitous in the armies of the Witch, and she had spent their lives carelessly – reserving strategy and tactics and all the refinements of war for her wolves and Dwarfs and corrupted Dryads. And such, it appeared, were the tactics of the Governor of the Lone Islands – to crush his foes with brute force typified by a force of brutes.

Yet it was inevitable, thought Hylonome as she pressed herself flat into the tiny waxy green leaves of the juniper bush, the scent of crushed berries tingling her nose and mixing with the muscular smell of her own horse-sweat in a miasma that made her nose twitch, such tactics would fail. The initial ambush had failed against the Narnians because it had relied too-much on the Giant – a concentrated display of power and might, the majority of whose strength lay in terror.

The Governor had not been expecting someone calm and collected and intelligent like Elizabeth, Hylonome mused. She watched the column of monsters move down the slope on the opposite side of the valley to her, flanked by a number of humans dressed in reeking leather armor and scraps of rusting chainmail. Her forces were downwind of the enemy and to the scent of juniper and horse-flesh was added another layer of stench; rotting flesh and sour leather. She twisted her sensual mouth with distaste – she was a few minutes away from getting covered in the blood that ran inside those stinking veins. _The sacrifices I make,_ she thought to herself.

To spend such troops so carelessly, to not take advantage of their strength and might and hardiness by coherent fighting, by relying on their native abilities and nothing more, was an unaccountable error in the Centauride' mind. Some four-dozen monsters – Ogres and Minotaurs – had been spent in the ambush; the Narnians had defeated them with relative ease once they had their hooves on the ground. Thanks to Elizabeth and Michael - and Edmund, of course – the Narnians had won that battle convincingly.

The fact that it was Hylonome who had been the first in the charge and that her presence had prevented the organization of an orderly defense by the monsters was something that did not enter her mind. Whether a result of her humility or lack of experience, the conclusion in the end was the same.

Publius – at the head of the column, leading the monsters towards her ambush – had said there were at most two hundred monsters on the Islands together with the Giant and three hundred human soldiers. More than enough to shatter King Edmund's army if they were well-lead, or if King Edmund fought them head on. He had lost half his force in destroying less than fifty monsters and the Giant – new tactics were required.

_Numbers do not win battles,_ considered Hylonome as her eyes measured distances and angles, _Narnians win battles._

Her forces were invisible – Dryads blending with the stunted bushes, Dwarfs and Fauns hiding behind cunningly-prepared earthworks faced with turf, a few of the smaller animals simply hiding in plain sight and the birds high overhead. She had thirty troops – there were that many humans and twice the Narnians' weight in monsters. Her assault had to be precise, and immediate, and decisive. One try, no hesitation.

The numbing sense of responsibility settled on her like a suit of her daddy's armor For the first time, she realized that she was responsible for not only her life, but the life of those troops under her command, and perhaps the lives of everyone in the crusade, and maybe even the lives of all those in Narnia. If she faltered now . . .

She remembered King Edmund detailing his plan to her – a plan she would never have thought of – and her part in it. _Stay here. Publius will lead them to you. Ambush them, destroy them quickly and without mercy. Ride like the wind to the village and stop any that are left from warning Narrowhaven. Good luck, I know I can rely on you._

How was she supposed to know when to launch the assault? How was she really supposed to take on such a huge number of enemies and not have a single one escape? Why in the name of Aslan had he chosen her to lead this?

She was scared. She was frightened. She was confused. She did what she always did – she closed her eyes and imagined herself romping with oceans of golden fur.

_Because he can rely on you,_ said the beautiful face floating in those gilded waves, _Because you are the very best scout he has. Because I trust him and he trusts you I will not let you let him down._

_ Now._

Hylonome was on her feet in an instant, leaping upright and forward through the brush with a crackling snap of white-wooded twigs. "For Narnia and for Aslan!" she cried, "Forward in the name of the Lion! To arms! _To arms!_"

To the left and right, Dwarfs and Fauns leaped out of their trenches; Fauns running forward – agile as goats on the mountain sides as they sped down the slopes on their little cloven hooves – and Dwarfs jumping onto the top of embankments even as they drew back their bows.

A dozen arrows flew as the Dryads burst from the foliage in a spray of berries and leaves, shock-headed with intoxicating purple seeds and thorn-like claws extending from their branching arms. A dozen humans fell a split second before the Fauns crashed into their lines, hacking down nearly the same number again with the advantage of surprise.

"You betrayed us, slave!" bellowed the obscenely fat Ogre leading the column, reaching over its shoulder and drawing a great recurved blade smirched with dried blood and rust. With a deafening bellow of rage, it drew the sword back and made to strike off Publius' head, the shepherd cowering in terror away from the monster.

Hylonome's fore hooves crashed into its midriff with a great glutinous squelch. "Pick on someone your own size!" she snorted, bringing her swords arcing forward in great sweeps that it barely parried. "And, in the absence of them, fat-boy, dance with this filly!"

Dwarfish bows bent and snapped back again as the half-dozen Dryads poured down the hillside impossibly fast, arrows flying high over the heads of the Fauns this time and smashing with unerring accuracy into two Minotaurs who fell with stuttering coughs and groans as their barrel-chests were pierced. Shrieking in terror as half-human, half-animal creatures and wild tree-women fell on them, the humans offered a tawdry resistance that simply wasn't good enough.

Swineblood swept Hylonome's crossed swords aside and smashed a mailed fist into her jaw, snapping her head back and sending her knees buckling. "Little horse-bitch!" it snarled, "I'll boil you for glue! You think killing a few slaves'll stop us?" Around him, the remaining monsters hefted weapons and loped towards the Narnians.

The Ogres and Minotaurs were outnumbered – there were eight of them left – but their sheer scale and mass might have defeated any attempts to fight them. The first blows shattered the trunks of Dryads and smashed Fauns into the earth in bleeding ruin. The Dwarfs could not shoot for fear of hitting their allies and so – with a ringing battlecry – they slung their bows and hefted their axes, leaping forward with battle in their eyes.

Hylonome shook her head clear and cantered out of the swing of Swineblood's sword, twisting her body and stabbing over her head and behind her with her paired swords, arching like a gymnast and driving her blades into the body of a Minotaur behind her and leaving them there. As Swineblood snapped its sword back up, the hook on the reverse side of the point aiming to pierce her chin and wrench her jawbone off in a welter of blood, she reared and planted a hoof in its teeth. The Ogre staggered back spitting broken tusks and the sword swung wide and gouged a bloody track along her flank.

A Minotaur drew back its ax to slaughter another Dryad – two Dwarfs simply grabbed that arm and held on for grim death. In the second it took to shake them free and send them tumbling on the grass half-conscious, a Faun slashed his sword across its throat. Stumpy clawed fingers clinging to the ragged gash in its neck, bloody foam bubbling around its hand, it swung wildly from side to side, its movements growing weaker as it drowned in its own blood, its eyes dimming as it slumped forward and was dragged apart by two Fauns and a Dryad.

Unarmed now, Hylonome ducked under the wild swing of a Minotaur's blade and grabbed it by the shoulder and neck, rearing and bearing down with all her weight. Its hooves slipped on the wet grass and it crashed down, Hylonome's knee slamming into its windpipe with a sickening crunch of crumpling cartilage. As she sprang back to her feet, grabbing its discarded ax and parrying Swineblood's blow, she broke its neck with a twist of her leg to be sure of the kill.

The birds were dropping from the sky now, diving with precision into the eyes of one of the Ogres. It dropped its ax and clawed at the air, catching the wing of one of its persecutors and snapping the bones like matchwood. But, as it threw the mangled, twitching heap of feathers to the ground, an upswung Dwarfish ax rent it through the groin and into the abdomen. Entrails spilled out as the bellowing monster slumped to the ground.

Swineblood leaped back from an over-ambitious chop from Hylonome – the unaccustomed weight of the crude ax pulling her forward and off-balance. It regained its balance swiftly for such a bulky creature, bringing the sword around to crash into the Centauride' side, splitting leather armor and cutting flesh. It swung the sword upwards and back, the hook on the rear piercing rerebrace and biceps and tearing outwards in a shower of rawhide and blood. Hylonome screamed and cantered backwards. Swineblood roared in frenzy, sensing victory moments away, and lunged forward again.

Frantically rearing back, Hylonome raised herself on her hind legs, nearly toppling over backwards and only avoiding this fate as she swung the heavy ax forward, its momentum pulling her back into balance. The tip of the sword whistled past a hairsbreadth from her stomach as the head of the ax crashed into Swineblood's chest, shattering mail and bones. Great shockwaves of rippling fat reverberated through its torso as her body smashed into the Ogre, knocking him backwards. She cried out again in pain as the barbed pommel smashed into her wounded side. The Centauride could feel great wounded lungs laboring against her, a diseased heart pumping blood frantically around a broken body – a body that could still kill her if given chance. Broken, stained and filthy tusks chomped at her unprotected neck.

She snapped back her head and drove her forehead into the bridge of the Ogre's piggish nose. It gave with a yielding crunch as her knee stabbed upwards into its groin. The monster staggered backwards, crumpling double. She drove a fist with the full weight of her shoulder behind it into the remains of the nose. Bone bit into her knuckles as she felt sinuses fracture and tear. Her next punch was swatted aside by a ham-sized fist, her slender sinewy arm caught in two massive hands and flexed like a spring willow. She felt her elbow begin to dislocate.

Hylonome reared, slamming first one foot and then the other into the Ogre's chin on the upstroke and then – as it tumbled backwards – planting them both on its forehead with the explosive crack of a shattered skull and breaking spine as she came down with her full weight.

Swineblood toppled like a condemned criminal when the noose is cut, splattering into the churned grass with his limbs puppet-loose. Hylonome straightened and rubbed the back of her arm across her forehead – blood and sweat streaking and smearing, feeling warmth leak from her bicep as she flexed it. Around her, the dead and dying moaned in their agony. A few feet away, the last of the Minotaurs – a huge creature with a shock of black hair framing blood-slick horns – kept Dwarfs at bay with great sweeps of his ax, a Faun lying next to it on the grass with his belly ripped open by a gorging charge. As she watched, a pair of Dryads hobbled the great spatulate hooves of the monster with tendril-like vines, tripping it and sending it crashing onto the grass. Fauns' spears drove into its back, finding gaps in the beaten armor and levering thick ribs apart. Hylonome turned away as it died, sweeping the surroundings for threats.

There were none, but approaching from behind her were some of the shepherds of the island, running as swiftly as they could down the hillside, crooks and staves in their hands, eager to do their part. She skittered around and held up her hand – the pain causing her to wince. She was going to have to get this wound treated or she'd be no use to anyone. The shepherds pulled up short, shocked at the unaccustomed sight of the Governor's forces dead and humbled. Hylonome reached up with her good arm and began to strip off her blood-stained armor

"See if you can salvage some armor from the Governor's troops," she ordered the shepherds, "Rumpledore, see about the casualties." As the Dwarf hastened to obey, she reflected that there was little that could be done for most of them – binding up wounds was all that was required for the majority of the injured and for the others, and the dead, there was nothing to do but hum a funeral hymn. She performed a quick inventory by eye – she had a score of soldiers left who weren't seriously wounded. In good conscience, she could not count herself in that – her arm was cold and numb, her side hitched with wincing pain with every breath and every time she put weight on her right forefoot she wanted to scream.

She was gingerly examining the wound in her arm with distaste when the light falling on the ugly, deep ragged gash was blocked by Quagloom. She looked down at the tall, leggy, steeple-hatted figure of the Marshwiggle, his lugubrious eyes brackish in his sallow, hollow-cheeked face. "Shouldn't wonder if that won't turn septic," he said with ghoulish pleasure, rubbing his big frog-like hands together. "Poisoned, too, most likely," he added with ghastly cheerfulness. Hylonome looked at him with flat eyes.

"Shut up," she said shortly, her youth causing her to lack the subtleties that might have made dealing with a 'Wiggle easier. "It's two miles if it's an inch to the village – get the troops ready to move."

"It's ten to one that they've managed to warn the village," moaned the Marshwiggle as Hylonome looped a tourniquet around her upper arm and pulled it tight with levering jerks, "And even if we get there they'll most likely manage to get a message to Narrowhaven. But there's no harm in trying, I suppose – although what with the troops being so tired and all I reckon we'll end up in prison or worse before the day is out." He looked up at the sky, "Do you think it might rain?"

"No," said Hylonome as firmly as she could through the needle clamped in her teeth as she threaded it with silk, "I do not." She set her jaw and bit her lip as she ran the off-white thread through the jagged edges of the wound, pulling them together, tears wincing in her eyes. Rumpledore jogged up and – after tugging urgently at her to kneel – took over and stitched the slash closed, only taking the tourniquet off when he had bound over the ugly gash with rough bandages that gradually soaked to pink, darkening to burgundy-gray as the blood congealed.

Despite everything – or, rather, despite his melancholy demeanor – Quagloom managed to get the remaining troops assembled quickly, bolstered by some half-a-dozen shepherds dressed in scavenged armor and armed with stolen weapons. It was doubtful, he reflected to the limping Hylonome, that without visors these shepherds wouldn't be recognized as such, and that any plans for getting close to the village in the guise of prisoners were doomed to failure. "But," he finished, "no harm in trying, I suppose. At the end of the day, it's things like that that keep a fellow grounded – you want to take note of me, Lady," he added, "You're altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high-spirits." The Centauride smiled.

"And that's why Narnia needs us both," she said, jerking her blades free from the dead Minotaur and wiping them clean on his greasy fur. She twisted her sprained ankle experimentally – it was tightly bound and would have to do. "The plan isn't _about_ deception," she explained exasperated. "How many are left, Publius?" The shepherd trembled – his courage was a new thing to him, shattered after years of living on these islands, restored by the Narnians and then taken by the sight and sound of terrible monsters – this half-horse included – so close to him and wielding dreadful weapons.

"I saw only a dozen or so of the monsters, Lady," he quavered, "and I doubt there were any more in the village. There are probably half-a-dozen or less left. As for the Governor's soldiers . . . I do not know. The village is large enough to support fifty of them, but I do not know how many he has there. I think ten or so went to Narrowhaven with the prisone . . . with the King." Hylonome nodded and turned to Quagloom.

"What we are going to do is destroy the boats," she explained. "That's what King Edmund wanted us to do – it'll prevent Narrowhaven from knowing what's happening here. Don't worry about killing them all – let 'em run if they want. There's no way off the island other than the boats in the village and the rafts the Warlord has taken, is there?" she asked Publius. The shepherd shook his head inside the gorget of the scavenged armor Hylonome smiled in glee, this was all going according to plan. "Great! So, that's the plan – smash in, smash the boats, let 'em run and hunt 'em down at our leisure. Let the Sons of Adam and the Daughter of Eve handle things on Doorn." Quagloom rumbled ruminatively.

"Oh, really? That simple? Well, no harm in trying, I suppose – it'll go wrong, you mark my words."

oOo

The fact that it did not go wrong – the fact that the assault went exactly according to plan – was not a surprise to Hylonome. Despite being from the south, she was well-aware of what the northern Marshwiggles were like and knew full-well that if one of them said something was impossible it might very well be accomplished with less than the usual difficulty.

Any misgivings she might have had about her ankle meaning that she could not keep up were unfounded – she had either forgotten or had never appreciated just how fast and agile she was in comparison to the rest of the crusade. Even her limping walk was the equal or better to their jogging. She had the stamina – even with bruised ribs and blood-loss – to treat two miles as nothing more than petty exercise.

Right now, she did not consider what she had done as exceptional, or even noteworthy – it was just what she had been required to do, something she had – to a certain extent – trained for. Of course, those around her who were more concerned with achievements and ability and actions noticed their _own_ victories and successes were, frankly, dwarfed by hers. To have killed two Minotaurs and an Ogre at once was an accomplishment of which few, if any, living Narnians could boast. King Edmund and the High King, certainly – perhaps General Oreius or the late Marshal Coriadine – but very few others. Right now - with the certain knowledge that they were on enemy occupied territory, with half of their number dead or seriously injured, the King in chains and gambling everything on supposition, the majority of their army lead by an unknown Warlord on the advice of an untested shepherd, and all their hope hanging on a woman a foot and half too-short pretending to be Jadis – it was the example of Hylonome that was holding this little force together.

Of course, it would only be a fool who would say that King Edmund had not counted on that. And it would be the acme of foolishness to suggest her achievements would have seemed as great if she had either made anything of them or even been aware of them, hiding them in false-modesty and blushing, "Oh, really – no, it was nothing."

In the little square of the village below – in reality a churned morass of mud and refuse – three Minotaurs, an Ogre and a number of humans lounged on rough wooden benches, quaffing ale and sharing crude jokes. Even as the Narnians charged down the slope, it was obvious that the humans were treated very much as second-class citizens – their laughter as they joined in with the jokes was nervous and childish, the actions of individuals on the edges of a group desperately wanting to be part of that inner clique for reasons they did not truly grasp. The Minotaurs and Ogres periodically spoke a language the humans did not, obviously making jokes at their expense. As Hylonome reached for her hips and drew her leaf-shaped blades with a fluid grace, rolling her shoulders to loosen them up and weaving a deadly web of steel in front of her, she saw one of the Minotaurs punch a human, sending him sprawling. Its companions laughed uproariously at the joke, as did the humans – but their laughter was different, the laughter for no other reason than others are laughing and one does not want to be seen to not get the joke.

The bull-headed horror turned its head at the sound of hooves and pounding feet. "What the . . . ?" it began, reaching for its ax as those around it turned to face where it was staring.

Had the Governor's troops had bows or spears, it might have ended very differently – but they simply did not. They were a force designed to keep a cowed and fearful populace in line by terror and the threat of terror, and terror was greater when delivered with fist and hoof and horn. _Of course_, thought Hylonome as she felt pain ebb from her as the adrenaline kicked in like an hour's gallop over the flat, _Narnians don't scare._

Shepherds – wielding their stolen swords and spears in a manner that might have been laughable had it not been so serious – smashed into the humans. Fauns frisked down the slope followed by stumping Dwarfs and leaping Dryads. Quagloom charged with a fervor few – if any – would have suspected and the surviving animals stormed forward chattering and squeaking.

Two of the humans turned and ran for the boats that were tethered at the quayside maybe one hundred yards away, followed a splintered second by a Minotaur. It trampled the first down with a hoof at the base of his spine and hideous crackle of bone and caught the second with a twist of its neck, its horn taking it through the kidneys. Almost contemptuously, the horned monster flung its head – and the unfortunate screaming human – back and charged for the boats.

Hylonome never broke stride. She charged straight for the fleeing monster, not even stopping or slowing as she ducked under the sweep of the Ogre's club and slashed its head from its shoulders with a single strike. The backstroke of that blow smashed into the tumbling human, cutting him nearly in half and his scream off abruptly, knocking him out of the way and putting him out of his misery as she bore down on the Minotaur.

In the wake her headlong charge had carved through the enemy, Quagloom was running, his webbed feet slapping mournfully in the mud and mess, him moving far faster than anyone else might have managed, seeming to float on the wet earth. He had a sword in one hand and a long auger in the other. "Don't blame me if the bit breaks," he was muttering to himself, even as he waved the sword at a human who came too close.

Behind him, the Narnians and shepherds were – despite the inexperience and incompetence of the humans – making short work of the Governor's troops. The two remaining Minotaurs were strong and powerful, but they were drunk and slow and outnumbered. One or two of their enemies fell but it was the work of a few moments to drag them down and slaughter them.

Hylonome reached her quarry just as it leaped for the boat. She launched herself at it, her fore hooves crashing into the back of its woolly head and sending a shock of pain shooting up her right leg. The two of them came crashing down on the deck of the boat – itself barely sizable enough to support a single Minotaur – and it heeled over, water rushing over the transom and washing around the prostrate monster. She span her swords in her hands and stabbed them dagger-like into its shoulders – more for somewhere to put them than anything else – grabbing frantically at the creature's horns as the boat promptly sank and the two of them splashed into the sea.

The water was not deep, and she was barely over the shock of the cold- and hardness of it – buffeted by winter-winds – before she felt the impact of the Minotaur's body on the floor of the bay. Quickly, before it could rise and throw her off into the water where she would be more hampered than it, she kicked out and down with her rear hooves, systematically emptying its lungs of air. Great bubbles of precious oxygen burst on the surface as she lifted her weight off its back, feeling the convulsive intake that filled those lungs with water. She deliberately put her weight back down and waited dispassionately until the Minotaur stopped struggling.

She reached down and jerked her swords free. It was only then that she noticed her head was underwater and that she had been reflexively holding her breath. She arched her neck and body and her face broke water, waves splashing into it and stinging her eyes. She rolled her neck and inhaled deeply. It was _good_ to be alive, and far preferable to the alternative. She looked to her left.

Quagloom was leaping from one sinking boat into the last that remained afloat, frantically turning his auger in its bottom. A little fountain leaped up, crowned with wood shavings. Behind them both, the Narnians leaned on their swords and congratulated each other. Rather mournfully, perhaps depressed it had all gone so well, Quagloom sat meditatively cross-legged in the boat as it sank, water rising around his waist.

"Ten to one we'll want these boats," he said ruminatively. "You mark my words – we're like as not to get stranded here."

But Hylonome just laughed, feeling the sweet salty sting of water on her wounds and the sea in her hair. It was only when she considered what might be happening to her King in the ugly and imposing fortified port a mile across the straits that she stopped.


	26. Il Principe

**Chapter Twenty-Six : Il Principe**

After getting hacked on the shins by a few dozen stairs, Edmund had managed to forget the pain in his jaw and side – which only served to highlight the fact he had long known but rarely had chance to test; that humans always thought their pain was far worse than it was.

The stairs were great wedges of stone piled in corkscrewing ascent through the center of one of the towers of the castle. The battle the night before, the lack of sleep, the abuse of the day and sheer physical exhaustion had taken their toll on him – not to mention the fact his hands were still bound – and his boots seemed to be made of lead, his armor dragging on his shoulders and thighs. He tripped and stumbled more than once, barking his shins on the sharp edges of the stones. Behind him, the Minotaur snorted in impatience and slammed him in the spine with the butt of its ax

The armor held and stopped the blow from shattering his vertebrae, but the impact jarred throughout his whole body, sending him slamming into the stairs. His feet slipped from under him and he slid down a couple of stairs, his chin bashing painfully as his bruised ribs were compressed. The Minotaur arrested his fall with a hoof slammed on his thigh and grabbed the young King by his cloak.

"Pathetic weakling!" it snarled, "If it weren't for his Sufficiency wanting you alive, I'd kill you now." It dragged Edmund up the remainder of the flight of stairs, armor clattering and denting on the stone and his flesh and bones bruising inside it.

The monster rapped on the oaken door they came to presently. A cultured voice – avuncular and pleasant – said, "Enter" from the other side and the Minotaur shoved the portal open with Edmund's semi-supine body. It strode through and cast the limp body of the King onto the ground with a casual sweep of its arm.

Edmund lay on the thick carpet – his eyes closed and breathing labored – and reached into places he had never even suspected lay in his heart and guts. He felt his bruised and battered limbs sink into healing slumber, his attention concentrating on the fractures in his side and cheek and quelling them. His hands curled slowly into fists, feeling the muscles and joints creak – he still had enough strength to do what he came to do. Of course, it might very well be down to Elizabeth and Michael and Hylonome to finish what he had started.

Was any of this even worth it? Elizabeth maintained Narnia was just a story – would it be so terrible if he just gave up right now? Would it be so bad? He could lie here and just die and everything would be fine. A series of books might end abruptly – would that be so wrong?

It was Edmund's intelligence that asked that question, and his intelligence answered it. _No-one is ever told any story but their own_ might be not the whole truth, but it was certainly the case that no-one should be concerned with any story but their own. He might be making this war for Narnia, for the Islanders – but his conduct was down to him, and for that he would have to answer. Perhaps to Aslan, perhaps to his brother, but probably just to himself. And, right then and there, he realized what the things outside him really were didn't matter – this was all about his actions, and his conduct, and his behavior

He'd do what he had to do. That was all he was asked to do and all he could. If everyone else did as much, the world would be fine – but he knew it was not given to him to understand that or make it happen.

Someone was speaking. He forced himself back into the world just enough to listen to the speaker – the pain returned the further he came out of himself. "Who is this, Gallowgore?" came the cultured, erudite tones heard from the other side of the door. Edmund rolled over onto his front and pushed himself to his knees and then his feet as the Minotaur answered.

"A human calf, my Lord," grunted Gallowgore, "One of the Narnian traitors to Her Majesty Jadis you warned us of. Some score of them were betrayed to us by the shepherds of Felimath and are our prisoners here, Swineblood is hunting down the remaining thirty on Felimath. No others survived your ambush."

"I see," said the tall saturnine figure standing in front of them. "It sounds as if there is a great tale there – of how some fifty managed to escape that ambush. I presume Swineblood will return with his report of their deaths? And who is this one? Why have you brought him to me?"

"My Lord, he claims to be King Edmund of Narnia," snorted Gallowgore. Dull metallic eyes widened in surprise.

"Well, that is interesting. You may go, Gallowgore – this misguided princeling and I will make civilized conversation." Gallowgore bowed with a hint of reluctance and made to leave. "Gallowgore," called the Governor. The Minotaur turned again. "I wish for a spectacle at noon the day after tomorrow – see to it that your troops gather the citizens of Doorn in Narrowhaven. I wish them all to see how loyal subjects of the Empress deal with traitors." Gallowgore grunted in amused satisfaction, knowing that its lust for blood would soon be satisfied. It turned and left the room.

Edmund cast his eyes over the man in front of him – it was hard to judge his age, for there were no lines on his face yet his skin did not have the gleaming vitality that would suggest the flush of youth. The impression – from the dark leonine hair swept back off the smooth philosopher's brow to the full length hauberk of dully gleaming mail and shining black velvet robes – was of a statue cast of lead in a mold that should have held bronze. The planes of the face were smooth and regular, as were all the curves of hair and clothing and armor – yet that regularity seemed to be the product of a process of facsimile, of representation; minor flaws and lines were not represented not because they were truly not there, but because it would have been too fiddly to repeat them.

The very word that Edmund's Classically-educated mind brought forth when looking at the man was saturnine; heavy, grave, gloomy and dull. The coloring was leaden, too – the hair and eyes were deep, dark, glistening gray that reflected the light metallically, the armor scarcely reflective. The man was clean-shaven, but the shadow that crept on his face gave a metallic cast to his jaw, a heaviness simply of color – it was the same smooth texture as the rest of his skin.

"You would be well-advised against trying anything so foolish as monomachy, boy," the man said evenly. The skin did not seem to stretch as his mouth moved, it simply covered the bones in smooth curves. The man pushed back his robe to reveal a long sword girt at his side and raised a gleaming metal wand, the metallic gray of lead cast into a wickedly barbed point. Edmund shook his head.

"I don't need to kill you now," he smiled, "I'll do it when everyone is watching." The Governor did not seem to react.

"Boy, you are less than two days from death – and death in a particularly horrible and degrading manner. A manner which will cause you to gibber recantations and beg for mercy." The man smiled a bloodless smile that did not reach his eyes or his even voice. "Your posturings do not impress me, and they serve you not at all. You and I will talk in a civilized manner, and in two days you will die. If you do not wish to treat with me with civility, then the torture will begin now." He gestured for Edmund to sit and himself availed himself of an ornate carven chair. Edmund remained standing.

"Well," the King said softly with a warm and friendly smile, "You can't say I didn't warn you." For a second, the Governor's poise cracked.

"You threaten me, boy?" he snarled, flexing cracks appearing in the leaden mask, "You, who came here with five hundred swords and now stands on my carpet alone and defenseless? Nine parts of your army are dead, and by tonight only you and a score of others will remain – as my prisoners!" He regained his composure. "Yes, you have warned me. And I have warned you. Neither has heeded the other's warnings." He spread his hands disarmingly. "We shall see who threats are empty."

"So we shall," said Edmund, feeling blood trickle inside his armor and pain begin to fog his mind. He shook his head to keep himself focused. "As King of Narnia, I relieve you of your office." The Governor chuckled.

"I was given this office by the Empress Jadis herself, boy." The Governor seemed genuinely amused. "It will take more than words from you to take it away."

"You and I both know that Jadis is dead," said Edmund softly. The Governor nodded.

"Quite true – but only I appear to appreciate what that means. You – or more likely your father, boy – may have conquered Narnia, but I still rule here simply because of the terror of the Witch's name. And with her gone, that terror is mine to wield, solely." He leaned back and his face assumed a curiously benign, fatherly expression. "You are too young for such things as this – was it some noble who advised you to come here? Some wise counselor who told you that you could make your mark on history by assaulting the Lone Islands and reconquering them? Let me guess – he has stayed at home, as your regent?" The Governor chuckled. "Let me tell you, boy – he will be the King of Narnia now – because your reach has exceeded your grasp."

Edmund laughed softly and shook his head. "You are quite wrong," he said politely, "but don't let my assurances destroy your delusions. They serve me well. You seem to know much of the strength of my forces – how do you know that only fifty of us remain?" The Governor's smile faded to an expression that was blankly devoid of anything except vague incomprehension.

"Boy, I set an ambush involving a giant and four-dozen monsters and siege engines. Your pathetic little band of woodland creatures and tree-girls simply isn't a match for that. You would have struggled ashore only to be crushed by the Giant in the rear. I suspect you managed to kill them all – but at a terrible cost." He smiled again. "Your attempts to convince me that, somehow, against all logic and reason, your army remains alive and active in a vain attempt to force me into a mistake are laughable."

"Or are a double-bluff," said Edmund reasonably, making it a triple one. The Governor inclined his gray-maned head at him.

"Please – do me the service of at least appearing to be an intelligent adversary. Your strategy is obvious, but must you make it totally so? You had nothing in your army that could have defeated the Giant without excessive losses. My troops tell me your army is dead."

"A fact they were told by shepherds?" Edmund had to work to put the necessary contempt in his voice. The Governor's eyes narrowed and his face hardened.

"Boy, I rule by terror – the shepherds betrayed you because they are terrified of me and my soldiers. The soldiers of these islands – monster and human alike – obey me because they live in fear of my magics and the Witch's name. They all fear me too much to lie. That is the difference between you and I, and why I am a Prince and you are a prisoner." He regained a degree of composure he had lost. "I recognize that nothing counts except to be in power, and that to hold power one should be prepared to undertake any action, unencumbered by ordinary ethical and moral values." He paused. "I will wager that your people _love_ you, do they not, my princeling? Faugh! You understand nothing – it is terror that holds men. It is terror that causes men to obey. In love they will obey when your aims are theirs and will turn on you when they are not. Men are less concerned about offending someone they have cause to love than someone they have cause to fear." Edmund smiled and opened his eyes which weariness had closed.

"Chapter seventeen," he said briefly, "although you have missed the point."

"What?" asked the Governor contemptuously. Edmund gave a one-shouldered shrug, pain twisting his features.

"Niccolo Machiavelli's _Il Principe_," he explained evenly, "The greatest document ever written concerning leadership and what it takes to be a Prince. Of course, I would not expect you to have read it – its author being from a different world and all – which might explain why you have missed everything of importance." The Governor smiled indulgently at the idea of this boy trying to teach him. "Chapter seventeen asks the very question if it is better to be feared than loved, and comes to broadly the same conclusion as you do. But it is the subtleties of Machiavelli that you miss. Machiavelli states that it is better to be feared _and_ loved – but that such a combination is uncommon. I am an uncommon King, as you may well guess."

"You're one in chains." Edmund ignored him and continued.

"Machiavelli makes it quite plain – as have you – that men are fickle and changeable and that, while love will hold them, adversity will not allow you to hold their love. He makes it clear all a Prince needs to be is feared – but that, in making himself feared, he must not make himself hated." Edmund locked his clear gray eyes with the leaden orbs of the Governor. "For if he is hated, then men will rise against him – and the swiftest way to engender their hatred is to harm them, and murder them, and take their lands and their goods. And that, old man, is why you will die at my hand." The Governor snorted.

"Am I supposed to weep, boy, because you tell me I am hated? Or should I tremble when the battered prisoner in chains threatens me? If they did not hate me they would not fear me, and their terror is greater than their hate. They are held impotent by that fear and the forces I have under my command. You speak of love and fear? I speak of fear and hate – for one creates the other and through that my position is strong. Men do not fear what they love!"

Edmund smiled. "You have never met Aslan." he said quietly, watching for the shock of unknowing horror to steal across the Governor's face – a shock the King knew quite well. "You have never met the supreme authority from which all other authority derives – an authority which is so terrible it can only be loved and an authority which is so beloved it can only be feared. I may be a student of Machiavelli, but I am a student of Aslan first and he has taught me this – something can be beautiful and great and terrible at the same time."

Something in the mere name of the great Lion had shaken the Governor, although he did not know why – he did not recognize the name, nor did he connect it with any Narnian legends. "And who is this Aslan, boy? And where is he? If he is so great, how come his followers are so weak?"

"I am a King who rules the land of Narnia by gift of Aslan," said Edmund quietly but firmly, "I act and rule in his name. As much as you need to be concerned with it, I _am_ Aslan – that is why I am here, for times like this." The Governor laughed.

"Very well, boy – you follow this Aslan, and you tell me it is better to be loved than hated. You tell me my people will rise against me and follow you because they hate me and love you – and you are, in fact, quite right." The Governor's grin was broad but somehow artificial, like the gaping grin in a Greek comedy mask. "They would follow you – and if there were any left on these islands who might be leaders I would be a fool to make you a martyr. But there are not, I have seen to that. I have crushed these people for four generations; one hundred years, boy, I have ruled here." He leaned forward and his voice assumed an animal snarl. "I have squeezed rebellion and thought from these people, and their hatred is directionless, merely feeding their fear. You could, if given chance, lead a rebellion against me – and if you had the core of an elite army you might even win.

"But you have no army and dead men lead no wars, and at noon in two days time you will die. You will kiss my boots and call me Prince and beg for death before the end, and they will not follow _that!_ They will not follow a broken and defeated savior At the end, you will scream your gods have deserted you, and my power will be more secure than ever, and I will rule unchallenged for centuries to come!" He inhaled deeply, seeming to calm himself, and leaned back in his chair.

"Well," said Edmund eventually, "as you say – we shall soon see whose threats are empty."


	27. By the Light of the Demilune

**Chapter Twenty-Seven : By the Light of the Demilune**

The sun had set and the moon risen above them, a great silver-blue disc sliced in half by obsidian darkness, when the rafts carrying the Warlord's two-hundred Narnian warriors slipped from the sandy beach and fine grass of Felimath and moved across the water towards Avra. There was no real reason to be quiet – they were miles from any habitation and it was the very depths of night – yet something compelled silence. Aside from the hiss of the waves under the bobbing rafts and the rhythmic chop of the paddles biting into the water and driving the crafts forward, there was no sound from the flotilla of small craft that moved across the moon-slick water towards Avra.

"Where precisely are these habitations?" Michael asked Publius' son Silvius, a boy on the verge of manhood and who had made this journey several times with food and wool and other necessities for the resistance. The young man turned his downy-cheeked face to the ageless one of the Warlord.

"On the most north-eastern tip of Avra, my Lord, there is a bay cut into the island – a deep inlet through which a river flows to the sea. It is there that I meet with the free people of Avra, although I think they dwell further inland – in places more hidden." The Warlord nodded and turned to Pearl.

"Commodore?"

"Aye, we'll be right – 'tis fortunate 'tis not a stormy night and there are no clouds. 'Twould be an evil fate if we could not see the Spear Head – otherwise ye might miss Avra an' not know 'til ye fell off the edge o' the world!" She laughed, the noise incongruous amid the dark silence of the night. Silvius smiled and managed a light laugh himself, but Michael did not.

"Keep us on course," he said quietly. He cast his eyes over the rafts that were scattered over the bobbing surface of the sea, illuminated by the silvery glow of moonlight and the little puddles of yellow light from lanterns and torches tied here and there to make-shift masts and spars – little vessels each carrying a handful of Narnians; Dwarfs and Fauns solemnly paddling, Dryads intertwined with the rafts themselves, Talking-Beasts lying flat on the decks – some with very human expressions of queasiness on their faces. "We cannot afford delays."

oOo

The same moon that illuminated the choppy and cold water to the north of Avra trickled through the barred grille set in the roof of the oubliette, the passage of time marked by the cold silver light marching across the floor in striated lines. Edmund lay on the straw- and mud-strewn floor with his eyes closed and hands lying still at his sides. He was not asleep – that eluded him as his mind ran over and over again his plan and what he had seen so far in Narrowhaven.

After his meeting with the Governor – a meeting which he felt had gone well and which had confirmed his assumptions and vindicated his decisions – Gallowgore had hauled him down the stairs again and across the courtyard.

The Minotaur had stopped, puzzled perhaps as something itched at even its mediocre intelligence, staring at the dying oak tree that grew against the eastern wall, now all-but covered in gleaming green and white ivy that was making inroads onto the stone, worming its way into the gaps in the mortar. But Edmund had struggled and the monster's minute brain had returned to him, smashing him unconscious with a blow from his mailed fist and a snarl of anger.

When he had awoken it was to find himself lying where he did now, with Fauns and Talking-Animals crowding around him and stroking him and mopping his brow and trying to nurse him back to consciousness. "We're here, your majesty, see, we're here. We didn't forget you. We won't desert you," they whispered as they tried to tend his cuts and bruises as best they could. Tears that had been absent throughout his brutalization welled in his eyes and trickled down blood-stained cheeks.

"I won't let you down," he replied in a choking voice as Dwarfs moved to cut him out of his battered and dented cuirass and slice his blood-stained arming doublet and jerkin off him. He winced and his hands curled into fists as his cracked rib was brushed. He closed his eyes and leaned his head backwards onto the folded cloak someone had put beneath it as a Faun did what he could to patch his King's body back together.

He drew back into himself, away from the fractured bones and crushed flesh and aching muscles of this envelope of dust, and forced himself to stop exploring the shattered spike of enamel and pulpy dentine in his upper jaw with the tip of his parched tongue. The electric spikes of pain and coppery taste kept him focused, but there were an indulgence he could ill-afford.

His dissection of Publius' woefully inadequate reports on the military strength of Narrowhaven – what could a mere shepherd be expected to know of war? – had been grimly accurate; the city was simply too powerful to assault directly. Even the harbor – traditionally the weak link in sea-fortresses, and certainly so at the Cair – was virtually impregnable. He had not had time for extensive notes, but there were changes he would make when he got back home.

Michael's army of two-hundred – which, if the plan was progressing as intended, would be landing on Avra about now ready for a dawn-assault on the Governor's forces there – would be simply unable to assault those walls directly. Even if correctly equipped – with siege engines and supplies and logistics corps and maybe ever a Giant or three – two hundred was absolutely too few to break open such a fortress. Even with siege ships and twice that number and High King Peter leading the army, it could not be done.

Edmund smiled into the dark – everything was going exactly according to plan.

According to the information supplied from the resistance on Avra via Publius – and Edmund did not choose to rely on such second or even third-hand information out of anything but necessity – there were anywhere from two-dozen to fifty "monsters" on Avra and maybe half-a-hundred human soldiers of the Governor. The term "monster" appeared to be the common currency for anything that was not human or close enough to pass in dim light – and so would include, Edmund reflected ruefully, well-over half his force if a Talking-Beast was considered a monstrous human rather than an intelligent animal.

The majority of the monsters appeared – from fractured and terror-struck descriptions – to be Minotaurs and various breeds of Ogre with an average of just over one head each. There were a few scattered reports of hearsay about friends of friends who might have met someone once who said he had seen things like giant bats with human bodies and faces of Hags. Mingled in were a few tales of lizard-like creatures and things that might have been Ogres or Minotaurs, but could have just as easily been something else.

All in all, the word "monster" appeared to reveal a multitude of sins, and did nothing to hide the fact they were better warriors than most of his commanders and all of his troops.

Hylonome had – again, according to the shepherds' intelligence, but here he relied on it more as he had both seen evidence of it with his own eyes and the shepherds could be expected to be aware of the forces designed to keep them in line – a dozen monsters and maybe forty soldiers to face. She had thirty troops – she was entirely capable of discharging that duty provided she kept her head and made the ambush at the right time.

Edmund did not worry about her – not merely because he trusted her more than she trusted herself, but because whatever had happened on Felimath had happened while he and Governor were crossing swords. It was over and done, and all that was left was to bury the dead and count the cost.

And all _that_ would come much later.

The dreadful ambush that could have been so much worse had it not been for the three people who were not part of his original complement to take to the Islands - Elizabeth and Michael, and the Centauride – had cost his enemies fifty or so monsters and the great Giant. Lazily, his mind turned this over in the sludgy darkness of half-sleep – he thought he had only taken Hylonome with him as a sop to the Centauride' ego, but it had been her speed and strength that had struck the Ogres and Minotaurs before their battlelines were drawn. It had been Elizabeth's maturity and calmness in the face of disaster that had slain the Giant without undue loss of life, and it had been Michael's valiant and terrible swordplay that had broken the back of the foes ranged against them.

It had been an appearance by Aslan that had sent Peter on his helter-skelter ride with Oreius towards the Lantern Waste, returning short days later with the visitors from beyond the wardrobe door – visitors who were now commanders in his armies and nobles of Narnia in all but name. _Is that what they came here for?_ he wondered, _Is that why Aslan brought them here?_

Obviously, considering what Elizabeth – even the limited amount that Edmund could see, for she was more private that she believed herself to be – had learned here, that was not the full tale. And to suggest that Elizabeth's sole responsibility was to be a good shot and a passable Jadis and a decent fighter would be to neglect the – perhaps more important – things she had done for Edmund. His mind wandered over the topography of their relationship like an hawk over the mountains, wheeling and diving and with eagle-bright sight focusing on individual events and junctions and conversations. _No-one is ever told any story but their own,_ he remembered, _and my own story is the one I should be concerned with. What she does for me is what I will always think she is here for. I have already decided I am making this war because I promised I would, not because of what it might mean to anyone else._

This war – his mind snapped back out of cloud-drifting reverie. Fifty monsters spent on the ambush – given the total number of troops Publius had told him of, bolstered by his own knowledge of lines of supply and logistics and the barracks he had seen in Narrowhaven, that left maybe five-score of the brutish creatures and ten-score human soldiers loyal to the Governor on Doorn.

He had a score of beaten and wounded troops in chains, himself, and – out to the east somewhere relying on lies and deceit and her own native wit – a false Jadis and twenty swords. On another island fighting their own battles and separated from him and their ultimate target by an inviolate wall were two hundred soldiers lead by a man who was war incarnate.

By any stretch of the imagination, this would be a terrific battle – in the sense that it would be a sight to remember and that it engendered terror in the minds of those who considered it. The three hundred facing him outnumbered, outclassed and could outfight him.

The Governor had already put the native Islanders out of his mind, but Edmund could not afford to. On them, the people he had come to save, his victory or defeat rested.

Rain – cold, stinging and hard – fell on his face, dripping from the grille above. He smiled into the freezing shower, opening his eyes to see the glinting and sparkling drops of water that flared like diamonds in the light of the silvery moon, and felt cares and worries wash off his body like the sweat and blood and filth as he slipped gently into sleep.

It went on raining all night.

oOo

The mournful metallic pitter-patter of a steady drum-roll of rain drops falling onto the battered armor of the Narnians as they hauled their rafts above the high-water mark on the beach of crushed sea-shells. The sand was luminous in the moonlight, phosphorescent remnants of the millennia of creatures that had given their lives and bones over to the crushing forces of the ocean to make its bed flaring in the unseen ultraviolet.

Michael swept his eyes over the Narnian forces, drawing them up in serried ranks in the rain with nothing more than a glance. His captains – Tullibardine the Stag, Brocklewine the Dwarf and Eryn the shock-headed holly Dryad – stood front and center, immobile but for the rustling of leather-dry leaves around the Dryad's slender form. Pearl and her sailors – enduring the weather that poured off their oilskins as if it were nothing worse than a mild breeze – stood off to one side, seeming undisciplined and wild and out of place. Michael turned to Silvius – he did not want to keep his army standing in the cold wind and driving rain any longer than he had to, but he was not about to send them into the rocky, treacherous heartland of this mountainous island unscouted. "Silvius, we must make contact with the resistance here." Frozen to the bone and with snivels and rainwater dripping off his reddening nose, Silvius nodded miserably and raised a thin pipe to his lips. He shook it a couple of times to clear the water from its stem and then pursed his lips and blew down it, cold fingers working the stops and a haunting series of notes spiraling up into the air, moving clearly over the silent island.

A few minutes passed, during which time Michael noticed a series of imperceptible tremors begin to run through the army. Shivering was not far off . . . Silvius gave breath to the pipe again.

This time, there was an answering piping – perhaps nothing more than the call of a nightbird, but the soldiers came from a land where there was meaning in such cries and they could recognize it for what it was. Primitive, fake, false – nothing like the meaning the Narnian birds would be able to work into such a phrase – but with meaning behind it nevertheless. Silvius turned his dripping face to the Warlord.

"Someone has heard us, my Lord – we should move forward." Michael nodded to his captains and the army forged ahead, the mixed column of Narnian soldiery - Dwarfs marching like humans might, Fauns and Dryads seeming to dance along lightly and gently, animals moving with the elegant loping strides that Aslan had given them – nevertheless ordered, disciplined, part of a cohesive whole.

The army halted on a minim on Michael's silent order of his left fist snapped upright level with his ear as a figure stepped out from behind a cluster of large boulders by the side of the path that seemed to lead up into the heart of the dark, harsh mountains. "Silvius?" asked the figure, dressed in sheepskin and a long oiled woolen cloak that the water dripped off in clumping rivulets, "Who are . . . _what_ are all these?" His eyes were on the great figure in armor and the Dryads and Fauns in the front ranks of the army. Behind them, he could see such numbers that – one way or another – the concept of _resistance_ was meaningless.

"Fear not," said Michael, stepping forward with his hands peacefully open, "for I bring you good tidings of great joy."


	28. Knight Falls, Mourning Breaks

**Chapter Twenty-Eight : Knight Falls, Mourning Breaks**

Dawn poured itself like a glacier over the mountainous heartland of Avra and revealed the extent of the foes Michael's forces would have to face. Crouched in the rocky hillsides of the bowl-like valley in which the hamlet of the islanders was located and with the birds perched on the crags high above, the Warlord and his Captains looked down on the scene below them.

It had taken Michael a few moments – in clipped, decisive tones that brooked no nonsense, could have only come from a general and treated the man as a soldier first and foremost – to both explain his purpose there and gain obedience from Eldwin, the man who had met them on the eastern coast of Avra. It had taken Brocklewine, Pearl and Silvius longer to win his _trust_, but Michael needed obeisance before he needed loyalty – although both were essential.

What Eldwin – who was a young man by any standards, probably still sustained on this storm-lashed chunk of rock by the legends of freedom fighters as much as the thin gruel of stolen oats and scraggly roots and poor strips of mutton that was his and his fellows' usual diet – had made of Tullibardine and Eryn and the rest was anyone's guess, for Michael had not allowed conversation or debate. He had made it clear he wanted to speak with the leader of the resistance before the night was very much older and – persuaded by the reassurance of Silvius and the commanding presence of the Warlord – Eldwin had acquiesced to the Warlord's demand for speed.

The resistance consisted of some three-dozen men and women – tough and stringy but diminished by their diet and constant stress and rough-living – dwelling in hidden caves. They had no clear pattern, no clear strategy – beyond a desire to live away from the influence of the Governor, to lead their own lives. Here, as the Narnians gathered around fires lit under rock chimneys and warmed themselves and roasted food and drank ale they themselves had brought, sharing it with the awestruck humans, they heard the history of their land presented as legends for the first time. Tales of King Gale and his slaying of the Dragon that plagued the Islands, the deliverance that began the imperial Narnian rule of these Islands. The tales of Queen Swanwhite, of King Frank and Queen Helen. It had taken a great deal of persuasion before the fighters stopped calling Michael "Sire", or accepted he was not King Gale returned to deliver them again.

"Have you ever killed a Dragon?" the fighters had asked, disappointed perhaps and wanting to find some point of legendary connection. Michael shook his head.

"Killed one?" he had answered. "No."

Awed and hushed tales of animals that talked like Men, and of trees that walked and talked and sang, and half-human, half-animal creatures quickly faltered to nothing in the presence of the bulk of Michael's army. And in the shocked silence as the resistance realized the legends that had sustained them were actually _true_ and the day of deliverance might actually be _here and now_ Fauns had reached for harps and Dwarfs for pipes and Dryads had lifted up their voices in song.

Brocklewine's Dwarfs had unslung bundles of weapons – superior by far to the fire-hardened spears and slack-strung bows of the humans – and distributed them while Michael and Tullibardine spoke with their leader, a tall gaunt woman with gray hair and a scar which ran over one stitched-closed eye. _How many and who and where and armed with what?_ the stag had asked as Michael unfolded his plan to the resistance leader and asked if her men would follow him.

And now – as Michael saw with his own eyes what Magdala had told him the night before as his soldiery billeted down for the night, to rise a few short hours later before dawn and march across the island in the gleaming darkness for an assault that would break with the morning – he reflected that the survival of these thirty-six warriors was a testament to their determination and guile.

The majority of the island was rocky and mountainous, with only a few patches at the shores open enough for the construction of villages and the farming of crops. Below them, several acres of cultivated land were spread out like a furrowed blanket, here and there scattered with low, primitive buildings. Agricultural communities were always desolate and grim in the Winter – nothing that was supposed to grow was growing, and the fields and furrows were clogged and choked with weeds – but this was by far the worse the Narnians had seen. Large-scale farming was unknown in Narnia – the population was, in the main, hunters or grazers or small enough to be supported by a few fields behind a village – and so the sight of the thin naked soil churned into a brown morass by the freezing rain that was threatening to build to a storm as dawn came up like thunder behind them was depressing on a wholly new scale.

Built from rocks obviously hewn from the cliffs around – the mountains bore the scars of work carried out by hands that were brutish and primitive but possessed of terrible strength, or perhaps by those toiling under whips that gave them strength but not skill – a large fortress stood. It commanded a position which allowed it to survey the bay against which the cultivated land abutted – a bay in which a few ships were riding at anchor. Pearl's flinty eyes expertly sized them up.

"Those ships'll take the army – an' yon lassies' fighters," she added with a nod of her flame-haired head to Magdala, "ter Doorn wi'out any problems." Her eyes measured the distance between the two landmasses – it was less than six hundred yards to the wooded slopes of Doorn; six hundred yards of surging channel her years of experience told her would be swarming with dangerous riptides and unpredictable currents. "The ocean hersel' might pose a wee mite o' a problem, though, Warlord." Michael nodded.

Magdala sighted along a long arm clad in homespun wool, leather and scraps of rusting chainmail. "There, Warlord – it is as I told you. The fortress of the Governor, built with slave labor and by his monsters in the early days of the occupation." It was, perhaps, telling the resistance seemed to be aware of the illegitimacy of the Governor's rule – that awareness translating into a willingness to actually do something about it, even if that something was only to hide from and avoid his troops and forces, waiting for a day when a deliverer would come. "The number of troops there varies, perhaps as he needs his bullies elsewhere. But there is always one of the Governor's lieutenants there, and he has dark sorceries and enchantments at his command. For the rest, I believe there are maybe thirty of the great monsters there and some fifty troops."

Michael pointed at a low building to the east of the fortress. "Stables?" he asked. Magdala nodded.

"Aye – there are a few horses on the island. Few enough, for the terrain does not suit them, but there are mountain paths where they can be taken. Recently, the Governor seems to have increased the number of mounted troops here and the patrols have become more frequent – it is my belief that he has decided to find us and put an end to us." Michael glanced up at the sun, just peering over the mountain tops and throwing saw-toothed light onto the scene below them.

"The intelligence you provided me with last night is accurate – we will undertake the assault with no changes to the plan I outlined." He turned to face Pearl and Magdala, "You know your part in it?" Both of them nodded. "Very well." He turned to Silvius – a few meters away through the driving rain – and nodded. The shepherd raised his flute to his lips and piped a few short, clear notes.

Above him, from the crags where the Narnian birds crouched, cawing cries broke and the great eagles and hawks swooped down through the dawn light in deceptively-lazy spirals, sinking lower and lower as they came towards the gatehouse of the fortress. There was no way the Narnians – who, even now, were pouring down the dreary gray, rain-drenched hillside in a riot of color with Michael at their head – could possibly batter down the drawbridge of the fortress, even assuming they could leap the wide channel that separated the fortress from the rest of the plain, or scale the fortress walls, for they had no siege equipment with them. It looked, to the surprised defenders on the walls of the fortress, that Narnians would break like water against the walls of the castle. All eyes were riveted on them, the surprise at the sudden appearance of such a motley collection of warriors – for only a few seemed to be anything other than animals – and the amazement at their foolhardy assault kept attention on them and hands from alarm bells.

That cost them dear.

Down swooped Brightfeather the Eagle, with his cohort of hawks in his wake. Swift and as accurate as an arrow from Queen Susan's bow they swept into the gatehouse, beaks pecking and talons clawing and wings beating at the unprotected faces of the guards in there. Weapons were dropped as hands sprang upwards to defend their eyes, soldiers staggered around screaming and frantically smashing their fists against the feathered bodies that pressed against them, the air filled with flashes of vibrant color, shrieks of pain and the angry cries of birds.

Brightfeather swept through the melee with the graceful ease of his kind and settled with casual accuracy on the ratchet lever of the drawbridge mechanism, hooking his talons around it and sweeping his wings out and down. He rose into the air, the lever lifted and – with a great rattle and clatter of gears – the drawbridge fell smoothly outwards and away, crashing to the ground and bridging the chasm with a thunderous cloud of dust and splattering mud.

"Into them!" thundered Michael, sprinting through the morass of mud and water that was churned around him by the feet of the swifter Talking Beasts. "Tullibardine!" he roared at his Captain, "The gate!"

The pounding hooves and long legs of the mature stag had carried him ahead of the majority of the army and he clattered onto the drawbridge, swinging his antlered head left and right and disemboweling human soldiery with casual ease. Smashing his massive body through the few men fast enough to respond to him, sending no small number of them tumbling, winded and bruised, he leaped forward, thrusting his antlers towards the great links of the thick iron chain that would raise the drawbridge. Horn and bone lodged in the holes of one of the links and – with a gut-wrenching crack – Tullibardine twisted the massive muscles of his neck and sheared one of the antlers off at his skull.

It was, he reflected, a little early in the year for a stag as young as he was to shed his antlers – for he was not truly a hart yet – but he had found his hind this year and he had no need of them. _Besides,_ he reflected, as he swept the remaining half of his rack down and across, deflecting the sweeping blow from a Minotaur's sword, _such sacrifices were essential for the good of Narnia._ He had no doubt that King Edmund would give up his antlers if he was old enough to grow them.

Seeing that the gate had fallen, soldiers leaped for alarm bells which reverberated with a great clanging noise around and against and off the high cliffs of the valley. Hulking monsters and men with eyes and faces puffy with sleep burst from the barracks inside the castle. A door high on the wall of the keep opened and a tall, broad, handsome human in richly decorated clothes took in the situation at a glance and sprinted down the stairs, running for the door to the stables.

In the gatehouse, the soldiers managed to drive the birds back enough to at least try to grab the great wheel and wind the drawbridge upright again. With a clatter and a clank, the bridge lifted a few inches towards the vertical, but the weight of stag and soldiers on it was too great and the antler jammed in place prevented the chain from rising smoothly through its aperture. Brightfeather and his cousins pecking and scratching did not make what was an impossible task any easier.

The swifter Talking-Beasts – dogs and the big cats from the South – were surging up to the drawbridge now, crashing into the growing melee with roars and growls of rage and anger. With a bellowed battlecry, Michael smashed into the center of the fight, his sword swinging in great gleaming arcs and two Ogres falling headless.

"To me, loyal Narnians and Islanders!" he roared, "To me Beasts and Dwarfs! To me Dryads and Fauns! Rise and fight! Now is the time of your deliverance! For Aslan and for Narnia! The Lion! _The Lion!_"

Above them, a great commotion broke out as two Minotaurs and a hulking monstrosity with two heads, three eyes and muscles like mountains gained the gatehouse, smashing around with huge clubs that shattered bones and shivered the walls. Feathers, blocks of stone and blood flew as the top of the building partially collapsed, the surviving remnants of the fight between the birds and the humans fleeing. The great monsters grabbed the chains in their bare hands and began to haul, muscles bulging obscenely and veins writhing like swallowing worms. Below, the drawbridge began to shift and rumble, the antler jammed in place cracking and snapping as the huge oaken platform tilted upwards, the fighters on it reeling from side to side and loosing their balance.

Eryn could see where this was heading – if the bridge closed then those on it and inside the bailey of the castle would be trapped, the majority of the army left outside and beyond offering any aid. She was under no illusions about what would happen to her if she did what she was contemplating – but that did not change the fact she had to do it. "King Edmund and Aslan!" she shrieked, scuttling forward with the rustling motion of a Dryad in her war aspect, her eyes gleaming dull red in the dawn light and her very touch a blade.

A single, impossibly agile, leap gained her the battlements and then she was among the ruins of the gatehouse – growing and budding and branching, tough, thorny branches and razor-sharp leaves twining around the three monsters, shallow cuts appearing in their fur and blubbery, wart-encrusted skin.

The drawbridge was stable now, the monsters having dropped it in order to fight the Dryad. Michael smashed a couple of soldiers aside and sprinted for the courtyard. The sound of drumming hooves drew his head to the left and he saw charging forward, scattering his infantry like pheasants before the beaters, a wedge of cavalry, headed by a fell-looking lord in translucent armor that gleamed like obsidian and stank of sorcery. He swept his dark-bladed sword in a grim arc, felling a Faun and a Dwarf with casual and terrible ease as his men lay about him with flails and axes.

There were too few Narnians in the courtyard – what was never a retreat might very well become a rout if this charge could not be stemmed before their greater numbers could be brought to bear. Michael smashed the brace of Ogres and the Minotaur that stood between him and his foe – they were just _chaff,_ get through them and move _on_ – to the ground, dead before they hit. He leveled his sword and thundered a challenge, one which the Governor's lieutenant was only too happy to accept. He hefted his sword and spurred his horse towards the Warlord.

Outside the castle, the Narnian maxim that _numbers do not win battles_ was being proven as thousands of pounds of armored beef flung itself from the battlements, jumping the chasm to land on great cloven hooves amid the Narnian army. Minotaurs and Ogres flung back their heads and bellowed with rage and anger, smashing and slashing with axes, flails, clubs and great barbed scimitars. Armour split and bones shattered as the Narnians were driven back, a dozen or more falling in fewer heartbeats.

With bellows of pain and rage, the monsters fighting Eryn in the gatehouse lashed out, their hands grabbing at the Dryad's barbed and spiky form even as she sliced off fingers. A hundred raking leaves tore open the throat of one of the Minotaurs and ripped the eyes from one of the Ettin's heads. With a roar, the two surviving monsters grabbed at her, grasping her body around the waist and shoulders, and wrenching apart with a great snapping and tearing of fibrous sinews and muscles. Dry, desiccating, withered leaves and branches fell to the ground mingled with a rain of sap and shower of bright red berries as – far away in Narnia – a holly tree that had stood since the time of King Gale died.

In the churned soup of mud and blood before the gates of the castle, a Minotaur raised its ax to slice a stunned Dwarf in twain. From out of nowhere a hurled spear took it through the throat and it toppled like a stricken oak as Magdala leaped onto its corpse and wrenched her weapon free. "For Narnia and the Islands! Up and fight, you cowards!" she screamed at the villagers watching in horrified huddles in their doorways, "Die on your feet rather than live on your knees!"

The dark knight drove his steed with cruel goading from his spurs towards the Warlord, who reached for the dagger tucked into his boot and threw it with unerring accuracy at his enemy's left calf. The blade pierced armor with the shattering tinkle of breaking glass and lodged in bone and flesh with the thick, meaty sound of butcher work. With a howl of pain, the lieutenant instinctively yanked his leg back, his foot leaving the stirrup, even as the Warlord sprang forward.

Michael's jump put his left foot in the stirrup the knight had just vacated, his left hand on the saddle horn hauling him upright. He drove his forehead into the bridge of his enemy's nose with a disgusting snapping noise. It might have been that blow that killed the man – snapped the neck or jellied the brain – but it was certain he was dead shortly after he hit the ground. Michael swung his body into the saddle, smashing the man out of the way with a brutal pommel strike that shattered his armor like a flawed goblet. As the Warlord's right leg swung over the saddle, the unconscious body of the lieutenant tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs that was swiftly trampled by the horses following him.

"Oh . . ." began the knight riding to the right of Michael. He got no further as the Warlord lashed out with a backhanded stroke that tore his head from his shoulders in a welter of blood. A surgical stab to the left and a horse tumbled, its ribcage pierced, and the left flank collapsed and tripped into a tangled pile of impotent horses and riders. Michael twitched his body in the saddle slightly and the horse obeyed by veering to the right and – as the Warlord jabbed it firmly in the ribs with his heels – galloped through the following ranks of its fellows, its rider lashing out with his blood-slick sword left and right.

Pearl and her crew sprinted clumsily forward, unused to the lack of rolling movement of the deck perhaps, and swung at Minotaurs and Ogres with boarding gaffs and heavy axes. Pearl's scimitar painted crimson lines in the air as she hacked the muscle from the calf of an Ogre. Its return stroke caught her under the chin and sent her unconscious form flying backwards, trailing blood from her broken nose.

On the bridge, Tullibardine had been joined by Brocklewine and his bodyguards, stocky Dwarfs in finely wrought mail and with hair as red and soft as a fox's brush. Swords and axes danced in a movement as precise as any snow dance and the noise on the armor of the Governor's soldiers was like a thousand smithies all rolled into one. Out on the fields, Fauns and Dryads and great bears and badgers were ripping into monsters with weapons, leaves, teeth and claws.

Obeying an unspoken warning, Michael wheeled his horse as he lashed out at the last of the mounted troops, raising his sword to defend himself. He flexed his arms to take the terrible shock of the blow as a tonne of Minotaur dropped from the gatehouse, its sword smashing down onto his blade before its hooves hit the ground.

The Warlord heard and felt the terrible crack as – beneath him – the spine of the poor horse snapped and sheared and it began to topple. Michael wrestled his notched and rent blade aside, shouldering the Minotaur's weapon away with sheer brute force, and drove a fist into the orbit of its liquid eye. It gave a pained bellow and drew back, giving him enough time to leap clear as his horse crashed to the courtyard floor and the great two-headed Ettin landed on the ground with an impact that shook the walls.

Magdala lunged forwards with her spear, her foe – a lean Minotaur with its dark fur plastered red with the blood of half-a-dozen Narnians – whirled its blade and dashed her weapon aside, smashing her in her chest with a straight-armed punch that drove the breath from her lungs and her body into the wall of a nearby house with a ugly crash. It raised the sword again and made to strike her head from her shoulders.

A shower of hurled objects – stones, pots, pans, kitchen utensils – drove it back, puzzled and enraged, shielding its face with its massive taloned hands. A knot of villagers were striding forward, gathering themselves and their courage together, throwing whatever they could get their hands on at the monster. "Yar! Get away, you beast!" they yelled. Magdala shook her head to clear it, lifted her spear again, and drove it with both hands into the monster's barrel chest. It made a surprised noise as its heart was pierced and then slumped to the ground, its eyes glazing.

Michael stepped backwards, his calm eyes taking in the once-proud horse lying shattered on the ground and whinnying piteously, looking for all the world like some huge insect half-smashed into the floor by a cruel child. He whirled his blade double-handed and put it out of its misery, taking its head from its shoulders. His sword flew back to guard as he deflected a blow from the Minotaur that would have smashed onto his shoulder with bone-cracking force. Behind the enraged monster, the Ettin lumbered forward, one of its heads blinded by holly-strikes to the eyes, blood and puss seeping from great gouged wounds. Pig-like noses snuffled, trying to seek out where he was, as the beast's single remaining eye focused on him.

The Ettin's club swung at the Warlord – he raised his sword and knocked it aside. The force of the blow drove the edge of the metal into the wooden bludgeon, and when the Ettin wrenched the weapon back for a second blow and Michael brought his sword back to guard the blade snapped at the notch the Minotaur's strike had put in it.

The bull-headed horror's next blow swept sideways swifter than a striking snake. Michael – armed solely with an eighteen inch length of shattered steel – ducked under the blow and drove the splintered end of the blade into the flesh of the Minotaur's meaty forearm. It bellowed in pain and leaped backwards, dropping its own sword as it did so. Michael pressed his advantage, jumping forward and grabbing it by the horns.

Outside, the Islanders – both the villagers and Magdala's resistance – were in the thick of the fight, pressing with the Narnians against the monsters and the human soldiers of the Governor, driving them back into the courtyard and into the chasm the drawbridge spanned. Tullibardine was sweeping with his remaining antler, his foes too frightened to mock him. Dryads were writhing bastions of inhuman arboreal might. The bows of the Dwarfs – now that the lines were thinned enough for that sort of work – were singing.

Michael twisted the Minotaur's head down in his machine-tool hands, bearing it down with main strength and twisting with terrible force. With an impossible yielding snap as bones dislocated and sinews tore, muscles ripped and skin spit, the Warlord tore the bull-head from the giant body and wrenched it free in a geyser of blood.

The Ettin was unimpressed. It barely even broke stride, drawing back its club and snarling from its ten feet of towering grim might, "Time to die, human!"

Michael looked up at the dual-headed horror that was bearing down on him. "I am Michael!" he thundered, "Warlord of Narnia, Champion of the Church Militant, Holy Warrior for Aslan! _I_ am the fist of the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea here and _I_ decide who dies!"

The Ettin's first blow swung wide as Michael dived to the side. The second smashed into the wall, tearing a supporting column free as the Warlord ducked. The third struck the wall again, masonry tumbling like autumn leaves and knocking the Ettin to its knees as its heads and shoulders were battered by foot-square chunks of stone.

_The little thing in the tin suit isn't there anymore,_ it realized as the smoke and rock dust cleared. _Where has it scurried off to? Well, it's not my fault – I can't see where it's gone. Shut up, you – you're always whining._

Slowly, the Ettin realized that something was wrong. It felt weak and wobbly. Its back and chest hurt and it was having trouble breathing. Almost incuriously, the sighted head lolled forward, drool spilling from its thick lips as it tried to take in what its dimming sight could not see.

The tips of two Minotaur horns pushed through the layers of fat, muscle and bone of its flabby chest, blood and air foaming as the lungs labored futilely, gradually filling with liquid. The monster slumped forward, wondering what had happened to it, as it drowned in its own blood.

Standing behind the dead Ettin, Michael straightened and set his armor more comfortably on his broad shoulders. Despite the effectiveness of his enemy's head as a weapon, he needed a new blade – one suited to his height and build. He reached down towards the trampled body of the lieutenant and his gleaming black sword. His hand recoiled instinctively as it brushed the hilt and dark sorcery crawled up his arm.

"Mighty and most merciful Aslan, array me in Your sight." He closed his eyes and whispered a prayer, grasping the hilt of the sword and kneeling. He reversed the blade before him, resting his wrists on the quillons and his forehead on the pommel, the tip of the broad blade balanced on the flags of the courtyard. "Unto Thee I offer my victories and my endeavors, poor though they may be. Though I am an unworthy reaver who wades through blood, I do so in Thy name. Look down with favor on me Your unworthy servant and let this instrument of Thine enemy serve me, Thy flawed weapon. This I ask through Thy sacrifice at the Table and Thy resurrection through the Deeper Magic."

A warm wind blew in Michael's face, a wind impregnated with the comforting smells of myrrh and cinnamon, scented reed and cassia, and a great wild, noble, deep voice said, "Arise, great Prince. Your plea has been heard. Be where you must be by noon tomorrow or all will be for naught." Michael's eyes opened and – for the briefest of seconds – the deep golden eyes of the great Lion looked into his, awash in an ocean of rough gold.

And then the moment passed, and Michael found himself standing alone holding a sword in his deadly hands. Where once it had been dull, almost-black metal with blasphemous runes carved down the length of the blade and with hilt and quillons fashioned of some evil green metal in the likeness of a writhing knot of snakes, now it shone and sparkled like silver in the dawn light. Steel-sheen blue metal lay light in his hand, framed and hilted in gleaming gold and shining sapphires. A tracery of thorns wove its way down the blade from quillons that were sprays of flowers wrought in gold and the gilded pommel at the end of the red-leather wrapped hilt was in the form of a roaring lion's head.

Tullibardine was entering the wrecked courtyard – strewn with the bodies of men and monsters, over half of which were the work of the dreadful Warlord standing before him. The stag shook his head and – finding the remaining antler loose – shoved it against a tumbled block of masonry until it shed. He straightened and then bent his massive head on his muscular neck.

"My Lord, the castle is ours. Our foes are dead." He paused, staring again in wonder at the destruction strewn in piles of cooling meat across the courtyard floor. "Your orders?" he trembled.

Michael hefted his new blade in his hand, gauging its balance and weight, and then sheathed it without pause or pretense "As ever – see to the wounded, bury the dead, give the army what rest and sleep we can afford. We must be at the walls of Narrowhaven by noon tomorrow. Aslan has spoken."


	29. Icestorms at the Gates of Dorn

**Chapter Twenty-Nine : Icestorms at the Gates of Doorn**

Winter had come with a vengeance to the Islands and the walls of Elizabeth's heart.

It had been raining all night, and only a few hours after dawn it had begun to solidify and freeze to snow as the great circular winds of the Bight inexorably turned and brought a driving icestorm to the Islands. Elizabeth stood imperious on a raised promontory of rock and set her face to the stinging hail, feeling the blood flee her face and her white-trimmed cloak stream in the wind

She had always – until Aslan – prided herself on having a heart like a fortress – _guarded by two very impressive turrets_ had slurred one of her fellow executives shortly before she had slapped him off the stool of the Sushi bar in Hamburg. For twenty-six years, since the day her father shoved her ten-year-old body out of the way and into the wall and left her and her mother for ever, nothing had managed to penetrate the icy walls she had built around it. She had worn adamant armor on her heart and carved her own personal empire in the heady days of personal excess and limitless ambition of the 1980s with her unstoppable will to dominate.

But that ice on her heart had done both more and less than protect her from the hurts and barbs of the world. Yes, it was true the ruin of the men whose hearts and dreams she had shattered hadn't even scratched her, and, yes, it was true the slings and arrows flung against her had frozen and shattered on her permafrost defenses – but nothing warm had washed into or out of her for those long years. While her friends were getting married and having children she was buying the flat in Mayfair and negotiating deals that broke the economies of countries. When her schoolmates were spending honeymoons in the Lake District she was eating indigestible food in foreign restaurants and meeting in smoky boardrooms. On birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas her focus was on those successes she thought she desperately needed, but now – after Narnia – realized were just the whisperings of the ice around her heart. _Make us thicker, make us harder, make us more._

_ And you never need be hurt again._

She _knew_ the flaws in this argument – she had learned this in a freezing dawn on the road back from the Silver Citadel when Aslan had melted stone to flesh. She knew the icy shields would protect her, but what was the point of the armor if it kept the love away, too?

_I'd rather bleed with cuts of love than live without any scars._

And now she stood here, gazing down on a patrol of two hulking Minotaurs and a squat Ogre which still towered over the dozen or so humans under their command who shifted nervously in the early morning chill, wrinkling her fine nose in not-altogether-unfeigned distaste and wondering why she was considering this.

She was Jadis – the White Witch, the Ice Queen, the Northern Sorceress of wind and snow and hail. Elizabeth _knew_ Jadis – knew her in a way few others in Narnia now might be able to. She could see in her the same flaws that had marked her; the grabbing of power for power's sake, the encroachment of Winter without the love of Christmas, the harsh cruelties of emotionless command. Jadis was Winter – a living expression of that season; by turns numbing and shattering, hard and cold and eternal and immortal.

Elizabeth, frankly, wasn't that any more. The walls of ice around her heart were melted to chattering streams of living water, and – even if she had wanted it – nothing she could do would freeze them again.

But, she could pretend, couldn't she?

"This," she sniffed, "is a sordid, dreary refuge." More than once, she had begun contract negotiations like this – _the coffee was bad, my hotel bed was uncomfortable, the flight was delayed – I'm in a bad mood so don't push me._

"Well?" she demanded. "Needs must I be kept here waiting, Minotaur? Or shall I have my Dwarfs find your tongues with their whips?" On cue, the half-a-dozen Red Dwarfs voted 'most likely to pass for a Black Dwarf in dim light' (a democratic process which might have resulted in more than one bloodied nose and black eye had it not been for the civilizing influence of Edmund and Elizabeth) gripped whips in horny hands and twisted them with an ominous creaking of leather. Soot and animal fat had been rubbed into hair and beards to make them spiky and black. Their bright livery had been discarded in favor of dark woolen tunics and their hoods were drawn over their heads, casting their faces into shadow. Around her, the rest of her entourage – a few of Edmund's elite lupine bodyguards from the Lantern Waste, serious wolves with steel-trap jaws, opal eyes and lean bodies; some bramble-Dryads, spiky and studded with prickles and harsh of expression, writhing female figures in bleak green – moved forward to stand level with the Dwarfs. She had about a score of soldiers with her – all specifically chosen to appear, at a casual glance, as something that might side with the Witch willingly.

Elizabeth and they had come over from Felimath on one of the ships' boats in the dead of night – their vessel now sunk beneath the waves thanks to a few strategically drilled holes and large rocks. It would not do to let the monsters guess they were part of their Narnian enemies. It had been a simple matter to walk inland from the coast of Doorn and locate – thanks to the wolves' senses – one of the Governor's patrols to present themselves to.

Elizabeth gazed down her nose at one of the Minotaurs, sighting along it as if it were a rifle barrel, and stitched an incurious expression on her heavily-kohled eyes. Chanel lipstick gleamed flawlessly as her lips curled into a crimson holly leaf, another rebuke being prepared.

Make-up had, ironically enough, taken longer than she had yet spent on it in Narnia and yet less time than she had otherwise spent since she was fifteen. Her face was powered to sugar whiteness with a thick, caking mixture of vinegar, chalk and things best not guessed at. Despite the offer from crucible-bearing Dwarfs, she had flatly refused to have ceruse plastered over her cheeks. "My name may be Elizabeth, but I draw the line _there_," she had quipped, and only Edmund had laughed. The rest of her Witch-visage she had personally accomplished with her compact – a process the Narnians seemed to find fascinating. She had had to dismiss them at the end as they were getting in her light and jogging her arms.

The Dwarfs had taken a great pile of Narnian Trees and melted the coins down into a gleaming pool of silver simmering in a cauldron. Wet sand from the beach had been packed tightly together and a long channel scraped in it. The silver poured into this groove had been left to solidify and cool, then the eldest of the Dwarfs had taken the rough bar of sand-smirched silver and – with files and awls and heavy knives – carved it into such a beautiful, elegant, delicate wand that Elizabeth would not have believed it possible. Working while the metal was still warm, paring off layers, heating them and bending them back, drilling holes and inscribing intertwining patterns in minutes, the Dwarf had finished by polishing the wand with sea-water, gritty-ashes from the fire and a soft cloth. Declaring himself satisfied, he had stood and bowed as he presented it to the silver-white figure of the pseudo-Jadis, her face imperious and immobile. She had taken the wand and twirled it lightly in her hands – it seemed as weightless as air, the gleaming sunlight shining through cut-outs and holes in the metal – and gazed down at the Narnians around her.

"Will I pass?"

The answer she had received was – she reflected as she stood in front of Minotaurs and felt the crossroads of decision around her – not the most encouraging. _To someone who has never seen Jadis_ was, frankly, not what she had wanted to hear. _Sweet Aslan,_ she silently prayed, _let this petty deception work. All I've got to do is lie – I've been doing that for years. Let me do it for you just this once._

"Your Majesty?" asked one of the Minotaurs, notches akin to sergeant's stripes cut into one of its horns. Its rumbling voice was incredulous – yet Elizabeth got the impression it genuinely believed she was the Witch, it simply found it hard to believe she was actually here. These creatures were kept under the control of the Governor out of fear of that name, and it was ultimately with her their loyalty lay. The Governor was a human distraction – a weak, delicate Son of Adam who, by rights, they had been born and bred to kill. The presence of their mistress might very well mean a shift in power, a return to greater and more enjoyable times.

Elizabeth rolled her neck and let the driving sleet and snow stream her hair behind her, pushed back off her face by a couple of strategic hairgrips and Edmund's thin circlet. The caking effect of the make-up she was wearing did more than bring her tone down to that of Jadis – it immobilized her face to a frightening degree, making it little more than a mask of flesh – which itself made telling the lies she had to easier.

"Yes - we are the Empress Jadis, slave," she said evenly. Something told her to not press the issue – she had passed as Jadis to an inhabitant of the Islands without the makeup, crown and wand (much to her chagrin – and probably Queen Swanwhite's) and she realized if the lady doth protested too much it might very well lead to unfortunate questions.

One of those unfortunate questions, unfortunately, came. "How do we know you're Jadis?" asked one of the humans. Elizabeth snapped her head towards him, running her eyes over him with what might pass for disdain but had worry behind it. "She's never been to the Islands and we've never seen her! You could be anyone!" Elizabeth raised a single eyebrow.

The wolf Rapine, Edmund's expert tracker and hunter who – it was said – could smell a guttering candle in a hurricane and run from Tashban to Harfang in a day and a night, rubbed his long-jawed head along her hand, making a contented growling deep in his muscular chest. Her gauntleted hand toyed with the rough fur of his head and ears, him rolling his massive neck to enjoy it. He yawned, exposing his cavernous mouth, red as blood and with knife-white teeth guarding it, his hot breath fogging in the icy air. It was a gesture not lost on the Governor's troops – several of the humans paled and tried not to be too obvious about backing away.

Holding her hand out for the Minotaur to assist her in stepping down, Elizabeth moved with sensual strides down from the promontory, her face turned towards the morning light and her beauty catching the sun. The Minotaur – as delicate as such a brutish beast could be – released her hand as she turned to the human and smiled a terrible smile, assessing what she saw there.

The Minotaur clearly at least half-believed she was who she said she was – she could practically hear the simple thoughts of the monster turning over in its mind as if it were chewing a piece of meat. _She supports my kind and hates against the humans. That is what we want – and so she must be Jadis_. The humans on the other hand, typified by this man, would be less-willing to believe her deception. His race, after all, had the most to lose - it was they who held the reins of power and they who were responsible for the evil in the islands.

Ultimately, this was the make-or-break moment – as she had done in a hundred boardrooms in a dozen countries she had to make them believe everything she said was true. The maxim of Lincoln came back to her – but with a slight modification. _You don't need to fool all of the people all of the time – fool most of 'em and destroy the rest._

"If you have never seen me, how do you know I am not Jadis?" she purred seductively, running her hand along his jaw. Of all the things that she had done so far, this made her feel sickest – it was something just so base and tawdry, made all the worse by the fact she had relied on her beauty so many times before. She had to admit she owed as much to the softness of her flesh as the hardness of her heart.

Swallowing down her revulsion, she slid back into her Jadis persona and toyed idly with her wand, "And can you afford such insolence if we are indeed her Imperial Majesty?" Her black-lined eyes narrowed and the smile vanished as if it had been switched off.

"And how did you get here?" asked the soldier contemptuously, "No ships have been reported save those of the Narnian _traitors_." Elizabeth – wondering if she might be losing her touch and knowing this question was the most deadly of all – performed a reverse moulinet with the three-feet of gleaming silver in her right hand and then pointed the head of the wand at the human. He stiffened nervously and took an involuntary step backwards.

"It does not please us to herald our coming with anything other than our presence, slave," she sneered, "We have come here through our own enchantments." A thought struck her. "By my magic I have brought myself and this storm," she gestured with her wand at the howling ice-tipped gale that only seemed to intensify as she did so, "to the Islands." Elizabeth had no idea where the storm came from – nor if it were usual for this time of year – but she was not about to let such a fortunate happenstance pass her by unexploited. _At least fifty percent of success is luck_ was a favorite maxim of hers, _and fifty percent of luck you make._

The man did not seem impressed. "Enchantments? We've seen none of that – this storm has been blowing up for the past day and a half. It takes more to make a Queen than a crown and a few followers!"

If Elizabeth's face had been blank and void of expression before, it now assumed a visage that simply sucked emotion out of the air. She was under absolutely no illusion about what was about to happen to this man – she had thought this through before and had made a cold, rational decision about it. She wished it didn't have to be this way, but he had left her no choice. It was him or hundreds.

But that did not make what she had to do any easier.

She drove her knee into his crotch without warning or pretense. He collapsed to his knees with a scream of pain, scrabbling at himself and curling into a fetal ball.

"I have no need to waste magic on the likes of you!" she snarled. She snapped her fingers and there was the slightest pause before she abruptly ordered, "Kill him."

With a howl, Rapine leaped forward and lunged with his ivory teeth. A single bite and a shake of his massive head and the human's neck snapped and tore. Elizabeth closed her eyes for a second, allowing herself a moment of grief and guilt over the dead human. _Perhaps he wasn't truly evil,_ said a voice in her head, _perhaps he was simply following orders. Do you know what lies and promises made him do what he did, or even what he has done? He might have joined the army this very morning._ She breathed in to center herself, falling deeper within herself and stretching her awareness along roads she had not walked for years – if indeed she ever had. What she met there – a rolling ocean of golden fur and a sense of calm surety – told her the answer she needed. These were humans – they were not native to Narnia. They, or their ancestors, had been brought here for the highest purpose possible by Aslan – to rule the world in his name. And, like it or not, that was their duty and their humanity could never be taken away; they had responsibilities as well as privileges.

They had simply looked at the privileges and not the responsibilities, they had cast those aside for their own gain. They had retained their humanity while accepting the lure of the world – yet they could not expect to escape punishment. But neither would it be justified to tar all humans with this brush – Elizabeth knew there were decent men and women in Narnia; Edmund, Susan, Peter – even herself, although she was unwilling to place herself in either camp. To look at these people and say what they did was inevitable was wrong, even if it was what humans tended towards. With the strength and help of Aslan, humans _could_ be what he intended and expected them to be.

Her eyes snapped open. Around her, the soldiers were staring with shock and horror at the cooling corpse, almost fumbling for weapons. Her own troops were ready for battle – bows half-bent and hackles raised. The monsters were caught between laughing terrible laughs and righteous indignation someone had slain one of their own. _Now,_ she willed herself, even as she felt herself mired in indecision and the horror of what she had just had to do, _This is the window of opportunity!_

"Well?" she snapped, "This is not the welcome we expected!" She raised her wand, realizing this was an unpardonable gamble but feeling, deep within herself, it was called for. "You will all pay for your insolence!"

There was a splintered moment of time, a fractured second, of consideration on the faces of the Islanders – _Is she really Jadis?_ And then that was replaced by, _Do I want to risk it?_

And that was it, realized Elizabeth, as horror ran over the faces of Minotaurs, Ogre and humans alike – the Narnians with whom she had fought and slept and danced and drunk _would_ have risked it. Because it wasn't about _I_ to them – it was about _us_. To them, it would have been worth it – for she could not have killed them all before one of them killed her. There was simply no selfishness in them – the terror of individual death would not have stopped the collective duty of responsibility.

Selfishness was ultimately a form of cowardice and, while Narnians might be many things, they were not cowards.

"Your Majesty!" bellowed the Minotaur in desperate entreaty. "We beg of you!"

"You doubt who I am, slave?" she roared, her wand still raised and Rapine and his cohorts standing snarling next to her, ready to leap forward. The Minotaur shook his head.

"No, your Majesty!" he moaned in a voice close to a terrified whimper. "We do not doubt you, nor have we ever!" He cast a terrible glare at the rest of his patrol, who nodded enthusiastically. "Hail Jadis," they stuttered in stunned tones.

Elizabeth straightened and let the rage drain out of her, appearing to relent and lowering her wand. She swept her face over the humans and sniffed contemptuously, turning to face the Minotaur sergeant again. "Is this how the Governor of the Lone Islands is ruling in our name? Allowing _humans_ such freedoms?" Elizabeth's whole strategy was to play to the violent and destructive nature of the monsters, to appear as the cruel Witch hell-bent on crushing freedom and light and joy – even the dribs and drabs that were left in the Islands. That was what the Minotaurs and Ogres expected and – more importantly – _wanted_ from the Queen of Narnia. By being that her deception would be believed. The Minotaur growled.

"Your Majesty, the presence of humans as free soldiers of Narnia sickens me – but these are the orders of the Governor." It paused. "He does rule in your name." The final statement was caught halfway to a question, and Elizabeth treated it as one.

"For now, yes," she said. "It is something I will have to _discuss_ with him." She paused and seemed to consider. "Perhaps it is time for a new leader in these Islands?"

Swallowing her distaste and disgust for the second time that day, she slunk closer to the bull-headed horror, running her hand along the matted hair of its arm, trying not to inhale the rotting-meat stench of its coagulating breath and foetid fur. Its coat was knotted and black, hanging in clumps as if the creature had rolled in tar, and its horns were covered in a thick coat of blood. "Such power as _your_ kind have, Minotaur," she purred sensually, "might very well be what Narnia is looking for." She held its eyes in hers for a second, a forced smile on her face.

It was not revulsion, but rather the remembrance of how she had done this – and more – before with men no less repulsive in their own way than this monster in order to get what she wanted, and the sickening shame that occasioned, that caused her to turn away.

The monster's liquid eyes shone with eager pleasure. "Your Majesty, you know very well that we live to serve you and only you – we obey the Governor for he rules in your name. Tell me your will and it shall be done." It glared at the humans, who – with fearful glances at the Witch's wand, their dead companion and the growling wolves – nodded vigorously. Elizabeth smiled.

"We have come here to pursue the deluded human styling himself King Edmund of Narnia and his traitorous allies. Though our own enchantments we know that he and his rabble have come here – we desire to speak with the Governor concerning this situation." The Minotaur bowed deeply before her.

"Your Highness," it said, "it will please her Majesty to know we have slain the armies of the human traitor and captured him and those who remain of his armies." Elizabeth felt within herself – and could feel from the Narnians around her – the wince that those words occasioned. _Dear Edmund,_ she thought, _Where are you and what is being done to you?_

The monster paused, and then continued. "It was by the skills and guile of the _Minotaurs_ in service to _your Majesty_ this capture was affected." The humans looked like they had something say on the subject, but a glare from the other Minotaur stopped them dead. The Ogre, who was lurking on the edge of the group drooling and following one word in five, didn't appear to have anything to add. Elizabeth smiled behind the make-up and laid her ploys on as thick as it was.

"Brave Minotaur," she replied, "the Crown of Narnia understands the weakness you perceive within the human rabble, and devoutly wishes to make it plain to its _truly_ loyal subjects that neither Narnia – nor her dominions – are countries for the Children of Adam." She stitched a look of regret into her eyes. "But, it pains me to admit, there _have_ been times when the brood of Eve have been a necessary evil. We appreciate the skill and guile of the Minotaurs, on which we have long relied in Narnia." The Minotaurs gave a dreadful chuckle which chilled the Narnians – and the human soldiers – to the bone.

"What does the Governor plan to do with this boy?" continued Elizabeth with as much disdain as she could muster, the strain of hiding her concern flexing the mask of her face and nearly shattering it. The Minotaur's blunt-toothed mouth split in a dreadful parody of a smile.

"Your Majesty, Gallowgore the Minotaur – the leader of our people here – has issued an order from his Sufficiency the Governor that all the inhabitants of Doorn are to be gathered in Narrowhaven at noon tomorrow to witness a spectacle." The soldiers of the Governor laughed in an ugly, broken fashion and Elizabeth struggled to manage a smile as she realized just how horrific a 'spectacle' must be to be considered so by a man who kept order among creatures as terrible as this. "It is for that purpose that my patrol is gathering the villagers."

Elizabeth nodded – the gamble Edmund had set her on appeared to have paid off; this patrol of the Governor's soldiers was convinced that she was Jadis the White Witch. This deception would not, of course, last if the Governor or his sorcerous lieutenants were met – and neither would the loyalty to the Witch allow Elizabeth to make any changes to the government of the Islands; if she asked for the humans to be set free or for the monsters to return to Narnia her illusion would be shattered. But, and this was the key component of the plan, it would allow her – and her twenty elite troops – to get into Narrowhaven for the spectacle of execution that Edmund predicted.

More importantly, it would allow them to get in armed and without wearing chains.

"It pleases the Crown of Narnia," she said with a bloodless smile, "to be taken to Narrowhaven to witness this 'spectacle'." The Minotaur growled a smile and bowed his great horned head before her.

"As her Majesty wishes it."


	30. Abyss Gazing

**Chapter Thirty : Abyss-Gazing**

"You seem troubled, milady."

The voice of the wolf – so like the first voice she had heard in Narnia – startled the tired Elizabeth out of her reverie. The patrol had taken her and her entourage to a fortified outpost high on a crag, less than a mile from the place where they had met them. There, the Governor's troops had entertained their supposed Queen and her followers as best they could; the food and wine had been fine, but the disgusting table manners and coarse jokes of the three monsters – not to mention the certain knowledge the cells below the castle were filled with villagers the troops had gathered to watch the spectacle the next day – had rendered the Narnians unable to enjoy much of the luncheon they had been offered. Abruptly standing with a look of disdain on her face masking the feeling of horror in her heart, Elizabeth had stood and swept from the dining hall – closely followed by Rapine.

And now – after checking and touching-up her make-up in the mirror of her compact – she sat in the well-appointed room, clearly intended for one of the Governor's lieutenants, and brooded. The wolf – laid before the fire, silent and seemingly asleep – had just raised his head and spoken.

"Yes, Rapine," she sighed, snapping her compact shut and stowing it away in the folds of her robe, "I am troubled." She rested her elbows on her knees and sank her chin into her hands, her sensual mouth turning down at the corners. Rapine, obedient to his mistress' unspoken wishes, raised himself onto all fours and padded over to her, laying his snaggle-toothed muzzle on her lap, gazing up at her with mournful yellow eyes. She smiled despite herself and absently ran her hand over his warm fur.

There was something magical - even now, in this dark castle in the middle of enemy occupied territory with death or worse around the next corner of the conversation or through the door of an unguarded word – about her situation. The magic was in the storm flinging great handfuls of ice against the glass and lead, in the roaring log fire, in the weight of the ancient armor around her and in the beautiful wolf's head on her lap – these kept her from despair and made her realize that, although she was far from home, she was just coming back to it.

There had been a potentially dangerous moment when one of the humans had suggested sending word to Narrowhaven – in addition to the ten human sentries posted at the fortress, there were a couple of swift horses to allow for rapid communication – that the Queen of Narnia was there. The Governor would, the man had explained, be able to organize a fitting reception for her majesty.

It was assuredly just Elizabeth's nervousness and sense of lingering guilt over her lies that made her imagine there was a sarcastic tone to the words "fitting reception". In any case, it was something she could not afford to happen – a fitting reception might very well be a cell or a guillotine – or at the very least a sword or swift arrow. She had shaken her head and declined the offer.

"No, slave," she had said silverly, interrupting him and putting him in his place with a dismissive flick of the wrist, "it does not please the Crown of Narnia to inform all our servants of our movements. We desire to see how his Sufficiency conducts his office without giving him warning of our approach." The man had bowed – and, again, it was surely just her imagination that made her think there was something slightly knowing about his obeisance – and not made such a suggestion again.

"Milady?" asked Rapine, drawing her back to herself. She smiled and looked down at the wolf she was stroking like a favorite dog. For his part, the terrible animal seemed to be enjoying it – if her experience with other canines could be transferred to this one, that is.

"I'm sorry, Rapine," she said, "I don't know if I can articulate it. I killed a man today – I did it for no reason other than he might have exposed my lies."

"_I_ killed a man today, milady," said Rapine precisely. He did not appear to have much of a problem with what he had done, and seemed to think making such a distinction would sponge away the guilt from Elizabeth's heart. She shook her head.

"But I ordered you to – and that makes it just worse. I didn't even have the courage to do it myself? My tongue is bloody and I made your hands – paws – bloody too?" She paused and closed her eyes. "I keep replaying it in my mind, and I just can't think of any way it could have been different. His death was necessary to maintain the lie – yet, I find myself wondering if it is all worth it if that's the price." Rapine raised his head from her lap and sat back on his haunches, staring up at her with bright opal eyes.

"Do you know who I am, milady?" he asked. Elizabeth's brush-stroke brows drew together in puzzlement.

"You are Colonel Rapine, King Edmund's chief bodyguard and deputy Marshal of the West." The wolf shook his head.

"No," he said firmly, "that is just what I _do_, not what I am." He paused and breathed in deeply, a curiously human action, and continued. "I was a friend to the first woman who wore that armor – my father served hers in the Narnian armies and she and I were pups at the same time. Princess Swanwhite and I – and Hedera the Dryad – were child and cub and sapling together in the balmy days in Cair Paravel – before the dark times. Before the Witch."

"But . . ." Elizabeth was puzzled. "But that would make you over one hundred years . . ." Rapine's yellow gaze fell on her and her tongue stilled.

"Stone does not feel the passing of time as flesh does, milady," he said softly, "I was a statue in her courtyard for nearly forty thousand nights – those who might have been my packmates deserted me, turned on me and offered me to her. And I saw Swanwhite die on the Stone Table as a traitor before I was made stone myself."

Elizabeth's voice was a shocked croak – Edmund had mentioned this in passing, but she had never had the courage to ask. "She was a traitor?" she asked. Rapine nodded his head softly.

"She was a traitor to Narnia and its people – men died when they could have lived. And many died by that very sword at your hip – but every drop of blood she spilled was an offering to Aslan. You must understand," the wolf said imploringly, "the Witch's claim to traitors does not simply apply to those who are treacherous to Aslan – for Queen Swanwhite never was. It applies to those who are traitors to other things – even when being a traitor is the only way to remain loyal to Aslan." The wolf paused, seeing if Elizabeth understood. "Swanwhite died a martyr – she gave herself so that Narnia might survive, even ruled by the Witch as it was. And I was stone and Hedera slumbered in the untended gardens of the Cair for one hundred years until the coming of the High King and his family."

"I don't see how this applies to me," asked Elizabeth uncertainly. "I had a man killed to protect my lies – isn't that treachery?" The wolf shook his head, and then checked himself.

"Perhaps, yes – but not against Aslan. You have to understand the role of the humans in Narnia – and why we follow them. Swanwhite was given to speak the Prophecy by Aslan, and it is telling that the last of the first dynasty should herald the coming of the saviors. She was – as you are – human. Aslan brought humans – brought King Frank and Queen Helen into the world at the very dawn of its creation – for a specific purpose. And that purpose is to rule and to be obeyed and hold the very place of Aslan in this world; that is a responsibility all humans in Narnia – in this whole world – have. Even the basest brigand of Telmar or the darkest Calormen has a duty, a sacred task given their race by Aslan. Be they King or beggar, they have a responsibility to act in the place of Aslan. That is what the Prophecy means, that is what Aslan meant when he knighted the High King and told him he would be High King over the rest. That is what King Edmund recognizes and lives and why I would follow him to death and back." Elizabeth shook her head.

"I don't see what this has to do with my being a murderer," she complained. "And isn't that just a little bit much? To give a group of people such power? Is that sensible or even appropriate?" Rapine seemed to smile.

"It doesn't matter what you think it is, milady – it is what Aslan did. He brought the humans here and gave them lordship. He brought the four monarchs to Narnia and made them great Kings and fair Queens." He paused. "Surely, milady, you see that – it is not to say you humans have a closer relationship with Aslan than the rest of us, nor is it to say everyone accepts the humans' role," Elizabeth knew for a fact Hedera did not, and she nodded despite herself, "but it is to say that is the role Aslan gave to your kind. A true King or Queen of Narnia – a human in Narnia – is guided by the breath of Aslan towards doing the will of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Whether he heeds that breeze or not is his own concern, but he would be well advised to – just as anyone else should follow the human who follows Aslan."

Elizabeth did not want to argue – something about what the wolf was saying resonated with her; resonated uncomfortably close to concepts she thought she had abandoned long ago, resonating at the frequency of the remaining icicles in her heart – the icicles that were bars against those she still thought might have poisoned the Truth she had come to accept here. She did not want to believe, even now, the poison might have been of her own introduction.

"So, we humans are appointed to act on behalf of everyone else in relation to Aslan," she said dismissively. "That does not explain my action – nor justify it." Rapine shook his head.

"I think it does – remember, his role is the same as yours, the same as King Edmund's. His treachery goes deeper than you think – he has not just betrayed his monarch and his people and his fellows, and not only Aslan himself, but has betrayed the very office Aslan gave him." The wolf paused. "At that stage, does he not cease to be human? Does he not cease to be anything at all?" Elizabeth was aghast.

"But is it my place to kill him?" she asked incredulous, "'Vengeance is _mine_', saith Aslan?" Rapine put his head on one side and looked at her quizzically.

"Does he?" he asked, "I have never heard that – but it is true nevertheless. You act in the person of Aslan; to your race he gave the keys of Narnia and bid you guard it well." Elizabeth's face remained skeptical Rapine stood and made to walk into the adjoining room. "Do you see Aslan here, milady?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, I don't." Rapine smiled.

"I do – she is wearing silver armor and has hair the color of ebony, and is masquerading as Jadis the White Witch." He straightened his neck and lowered his shoulders in the lupine bow. "Goodnight, milady – sleep well. If nothing else I have said convinces you, remember that, when pretending to be a monster, it is sometimes necessary to play the part if you mean to be effective." Elizabeth smiled weakly as Rapine turned and withdrew.

"Thank you," she whispered to his retreating back. She stood, stretching her long arms and yawning, rolling her head to ease the kinks in her bruised neck muscles. She was looking forward to sleeping in a real bed tonight – it had been too long since she had done that. A flush of shame colored her cheeks as she remembered that Edmund and the rest of those imprisoned by the Governor might very well not be getting any sleep at all and what they did get would certainly not be in a bed and would be marred by the knowledge of impending death in the morning.

She moved to strip off the armor – she could not sleep in it and so, as loath as she was to discard her protection in this enemy castle, she needed to take it off. Placing the steel and leather neatly on a chair and dressed only in the quilted arming garment, she rested her wand against the wall and hung the crown on a convenient hook behind the door. Then, far from any self-conscious sense and almost moving in spite of any volition, she drove the point of her sword into the planks of the floor, knelt and bowed her head.

Resting her forehead against the reversed hilt and quillons of the sword, she realized that here the two worlds – hers and Narnia – met; in the downward stab of the blade that killed the Lion and the shape of the cross that had killed the Carpenter. She smiled at this detail, consigning it to the deeper recesses of her mind, and composed her mind to prayer.

A knock at the door snapped her head back up. It was late – the fortress was dark and the soldiers had specific instructions from the Minotaur not to bother the Queen unduly. "Begone," she called, "we consider this intrusion unwarranted. We shall hear your pleas in the morning." She bent her head again.

The door crashed open with a yielding smash of splintering wood, the lock bursting inwards as a Minotaur put its shoulder to it. Fragments of iron-studded pine scattered across the room as Elizabeth's head snapped up in shock and horror, her hands freezing on the hilt of the sword.

Under the outstretched arm of the Minotaur, human soldiers were running, weapons leveled at her, drawing into a ragged rank and gathering themselves for a split second.

"Walls have ears, Narnian-bitch!" snarled the Minotaur, stooping and shouldering its way into the room, unlimbering a huge scimitar and testing the hammered edge with a fist-sized thumb. It leveled the blade at Elizabeth. "Kill her!"

"_Rapine!_" Elizabeth shrieked, rolling backwards off her knees and reversing her grip on the sword. She knocked a spear thrust aside and ducked under the sweep of a sword, crying out in pain as an ax blade crashed down on her right shoulder. The padded leather armor split, quilted cotton spilling out, but her skin was unbroken. The shock of the blow numbed her arm and her sword fell from nerveless fingers to clatter on the floor.

The door to the adjoining room burst off its hinges as Rapine threw his massive body against it, the wolf landing on skidding paws and crouching to spring. His leap shattered the bones of the ax wielder, crunching him down onto the floor in a broken bloody smear. He threw back his head and howled – a long, ululating note that was known all across the Lantern Waste; _To arms! Narnia!_

A soldier swung his sword at Elizabeth as another stabbed at her with a spear. She crossed her forearms, grabbed his wrist and twisted with near-forgotten martial arts skills. She'd used them more than once in nightclubs to get rid of unwanted attentions, but now her blood was up and she did not know her own strength. The man's wrist shattered like a candy cane and his body went tumbling into the spear thrust. His scream of pain was swiftly cut off as his heart was pierced.

Plucking his tumbling blade out of the air, she smashed a reverse roundhouse kick into the jaw of the kinslayer, shattering the bone with an explosive crack. As he tumbled away, eyes glazing, she raised the sword in two hands and blocked the Minotaur's blow. It was only the low ceiling – which prevented it from using an overhead chop – that saved her from being shattered into the ground by the force of the strike. As it was, her legs flexed and gave way, and she crashed down onto one knee.

Rapine twisted out of the way of a lunge, the spear point missing his head by inches, and arched his neck. His steel-trap jaws closed on the haft of the weapon, shattering through it and filling his mouth with splinters. A glance to take aim, and he hurled the spearhead with a flick of his neck and then – his jaws open and ravening – leaped for the terrified human now armed with a four-foot length of ash.

The spearhead hit the Minotaur in the face, and it snarled and twisted its head away, taking half a step back. Elizabeth – realizing she had no room to use the sword – dropped it, grabbed for the dagger in her boot, drove it into the Minotaur's leg just above the coronet of the hoof, rolled backwards, grabbing her own sword as she did so, and somersaulted back to her heels, her blade held unwavering. The monster howled in pain and lurched for her.

Rapine batted the spear haft aside with a roll of his shoulders, his teeth meeting in the unfortunate man's throat, a shower of blood arcing out as he wrenched back his head with a snarl. In the doorway, a human was simply flayed alive as Rosacae the bramble-Dryad enveloped him in a tangling skein of thorn-sharp branches, his screams dying down to bubbling agony as Dwarfs pounded in on iron-shod feet, mail glinting in the firelight. Swift chopping motions with heavy axes hamstrung the soldiers, leaving them tumbling to the ground and at the mercy of the coups-de-grace to neck or head.

The Minotaur bellowed in rage and swung for Elizabeth; it was slow and injured and heavy and drunk on too-much-wine. She had been interrupted at prayer, and her mind was clear and calm and still as a crystal pool. She ducked under the clumsy stroke and slashed upwards, shortening its arm by a foot and sending its blade tumbling. Her reverse stroke took it across the stomach and it doubled over in pain as muscles were sliced.

With a deliberate, definite finality, she drove her sword forward through its nose and into its brain – a decisive stop-hit that immobilized the creature for a second, shortly before she whipped her blade free, shook the blood of it, and watched her dead foe fall to the ground. Around the six Narnians, nothing lived.

"Orders, milady?" snarled Rapine. Elizabeth turned her head to him.

"Our mission is compromised," she said crisply. "Kill every soldier in the castle. Free the prisoners." Rapine bowed.

"I hear and obey," he growled, turning and loping out of the blood-stained room, swiftly followed by Rosacae and the Dwarfs. Elizabeth remained where she was for a second, and then heard the unmistakable noise of the gate opening and the pounding of galloping hooves. A terrible thought struck her as she ran from the room, sprinting out onto the battlements.

In the courtyard below her, illuminated by the waxing moon and flicking torches, her forces – _sweet Lion, she was thinking of them as hers now!_ – were joined in battle with those of the Governor. Rapine was attached by his magnificent fangs to the neck of the Ogre, blood bubbling from the wound, even as the creature swung left and right with a huge club, knocking Dwarfs flying.

Those forces were Edmund's elite – personally selected and trained by him, capable of besting twice their number in the most unfavorable conditions known to man or beast. She was not concerned about them. She snapped her eyes over to the land outside the castle.

There, she saw a pair of horsemen galloping from the gate – obviously riding towards Narrowhaven to warn the Governor about what was afoot. At most, it was five miles – even over this terrain, that was less than an hour. She and her troops would be dead by morning – and Edmund would be dead by noon.

Five yards away on the parapet one of the soldiers was bending a bow, ready to shoot into the melee below. Elizabeth stabbed with her sword, driving the blade into his chest, and snatched the bow out of his dead hand as he fell. She pulled a handful of arrows out of his quiver and kicked the body into the courtyard below, turning away from it and fitting an arrow to the string.

She pulled back the bow, feeling the muscles in her back flex as she did so, drawing the flights of the arrow to her ear, holding the poundage immobile for a fraction of time and then letting go.

Before the arrow had traveled ten yards, her hands were in motion again, taking up another arrow, fitting it to the string and drawing back, her stance and angle changing slightly. Goose-feathers tickled the lobe of her ear and then a second arrow sped away.

One hundred yards away, two riders jerked, their hands and feet leaving the reins and stirrups of the horses with a spasm of pain, and then tumbled from the saddles. The horses galloped on for a few yards and then ambled down to a canter, then a trot, and finally a listless walk. Their heads stooped and began to crop the grass that grew amid the rocks.

Elizabeth turned back to the melee – ready to leap the three yards off the top of the wall if needs be – but it was all over. The Ogre had fallen, its throat rent open by Rapine's teeth, and the rest of the Governor's forces were defeated. A wolf lay immobile on the floor and two Dwarfs lay headless next to the corpse of the second Minotaur but – by and large – the battle had gone the way of the Narnians. Two of the Dwarfs were hauling open the trapdoor that lead to the cells, helping frightened prisoners scramble free, and answering their questions as best they could.

Three of the Governor's soldiers were still alive; on their knees in the mud and blood and with their hands in the air, their weapons thrown down before them. Rosacae turned to Elizabeth, waiting for orders. The woman raised her hand.

"We accept their surrender," she said firmly, leaping down the stairs to the courtyard, "Chain them and lock them in the cells." She turned away, moving to give orders to Rapine.

"Wait!" cried one of the soldiers from behind her, "Listen to me!" Rosacae smashed him across the jaw with a thorny fist, scratching bloody welts along his cheek.

"Silence!" she hissed. Elizabeth turned and raised a hand.

"Wait, Rosa," she said. The bramble-Dryad inclined her head and stepped back a pace as Elizabeth faced the solider. "What would you say to me?"

The human was frantic – blood leaking from his jaw and his face contorted with terror. "Please! You need us! We don't want to work for the Governor any more than you do – you don't know what it's like!" His eyes were imploring, begging her to believe. "If you want to get into Narrowhaven, you need us with you – they'll never let you in otherwise." Elizabeth inhaled deeply as she realized that was true. Rapine came and stood by her, licking blood from his fangs.

"He's right, milady," the wolf growled, "The whole plan hinges on us entering Narrowhaven escorted – it is the only way we can enter armed and not prisoners." Elizabeth nodded her head, looking at the man kneeling before her, trying to assess what she saw there. Part of her wanted to trust him – if only in expiation of the death of his fellow – and another part of her distrusted him acutely.

But, a larger part than either of those knew she had no choice. The man swallowed and closed his eyes in terror, knowing that death was but a second away. Elizabeth seemed to make up her mind.

"Very well," she said at length, "I will trust you." The man half-collapsed with relief as Elizabeth turned to the wolf. "Rapine," she ordered, "take care of these men." The wolf bowed his head as she left, moving towards the villagers and ushering them into the warmth of the castle, explaining the situation as she did so.

Slowly, shakily, the soldiers stood and began to move towards their barracks. Rapine's snarling form blocked their path. "But . . . but, she said . . . !" one of them frantically quavered. Rapine smiled and flicked his head towards the cells.

"She's not here, I am – and I don't trust you as far as I can throw you," he snarled, "Unless you want to see just how far that is, get in the gaol."


	31. Aree, Aree, Lama Sabachtani?

**A/n:** The title of this chapter is "My lion, my lion, why have you forsaken me?" in Aramaic. Thanks to my friend Evan for translating this.

**Chapter Thirty-One : Aree, Aree, Lama Sabachtani?**

There was, reflected Edmund as he felt the icy rainwater sluice his bloody-sweat in great drops onto the ground, a particular kind of loneliness that did not depend on people not being there. He cast his eyes around the small, stinking cell he was in, sighed at what he saw and bent his head again.

Like Elizabeth in the north of Narnia a month and a half before, the words that came to his mind were that he was alone. Alone among the score of Narnians who were crowded into the tiny cell he was awake; on his knees with his head bowed, feeling his bruises and cuts locking in the cold and time, the noise of those around him a distraction not a comfort. The various sounds of unconscious breathing – the snuffling of the animals, the snores of the Dwarfs – sounded to him inhuman, which they were, and inanimate, which they were – of course – not.

Yet, to Edmund at that moment in time – kneeling there in that cell and with distraction scrapping at the edges of his raw nerves – there was nothing animate about them. They were just noise; noises he would have liked to have blamed for the silence that lay outside that cell – but he knew, deep in his once-wounded heart, that this silence was hiding itself.

He unclasped a bruised and trembling hand and shook one of the Dwarfs next to him awake. He came around like Peter did – dully and with sleep-smirched eyes. "Could none of you have stayed awake?" he asked plaintively. The Dwarf grunted and rolled over, trying to get more comfortable. "For an hour?" the King asked quietly.

There was an awareness in his mind he may very well have to die that day. He had known this – intellectually – from the time the very first bombs fell on London, from the moment he donned armor in service to Narnia, from the instant he set this army on its bloody crusade three weeks before; but now, facing it again, it was as hard as it ever had been. Alone among the four siblings, he knew what it was to touch death – lying on the field of Beruna with his heart pierced by the knife that had killed Aslan and feeling the cold leech into everything you were. Aslan had died on the Table for them all, and – on the bright grass of Narnia, surrounded by his family and friends – Aslan had been generous enough to show Edmund a sliver of that door through which no-one returned.

And now he was alone, and even Aslan was silent.

He reached down and shook the Dwarf again, but he merely turned over in his sleep and subsided into deeper slumber. Edmund closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying to forge through the silence into something warm and yielding. But there was nothing – merely the cold, hard silence of the void that reflected like a mirror and made impossible demands.

_Impossible? Inevitable, more like._

"I don't want this to happen," said Edmund into the noisy silence of the cell, "I don't want to die today. I have faced death without a tremor before, but . . . your silence terrifies me."

For a day and a night he had prayed – while his followers nursed their wounds and prattled in terror and grief, scared of what might happen to them. He had tried to shut out their voices, but there was nothing to concentrate on beyond them. The Lion was silent, he had deserted Edmund – and the force of that struck him harder than any of Gallowgore's blows. It was as if all the strength in his body fled him and his wounds had weight and pressed on his shoulders.

He was a bell-flower before the hurricane. He was a candle before the night torrent.

He was a child being brutalized by monsters.

He had come into Narnia alone, and while his siblings were making friends and allies, he had still been alone – alone in the Witch's castle and alone on her sledge. Alone he had been brought back from her camp, and alone he had walked with Aslan . . . and alone he had never walked again.

Until now.

Despite what he wanted, this would happen. What would come to pass would come to pass. Now, his fate was in the hands of Elizabeth and Michael – war and deceit might save him from death.

_A death saved Narnia, maybe the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea needs another for the Islands?_

From the lattice-work iron above, a clanking. Edmund stood and raised his head – Gallowgore was, with great clumsy hands, unlatching the bolts and unlocking the padlock. Edmund reached down and shook the Dwarf roughly awake as the Minotaur hauled the iron grille open with a shower of rust and rainwater. "Get up," said the King, his voice firm, "the hour has come."

oOo

The sky was scrubbed clean like a raw wound and snow lay on the ground in a crumbled, gray mess – trampled by the great crowds thronging the courtyard. Edmund squinted in the bright winter sunlight, taking in the details of what was about to happen to him.

Through the silent, sullen, cowed crowds a long path snaked – a path marked out by lines of soldiers, a path that lead towards a raised dais and platform at the end of the courtyard. Seated above the thronging mass of humanity – the Islanders gathered by Gallowgore's troops to witness the execution of Edmund – was the Governor, saturnine and silent in a great metal throne. Beside him, a sturdy framework of lead-braced pine reared – a framework which was destined to receive the great iron-shod six-spoked wheel that Gallowgore was holding upright on the flags of the courtyard.

"Of course," said Edmund almost to himself. In the crueler years of his youth – which was most of them – a grim fascination with torment had taken him. He had burned ants with a magnifying glass and torn the legs off spiders and wings off flies. He had hurt Lucy more than once and – even now, after all that had happened and all that was about to happen – he squirmed with shame and embarrassment.

But from things he had read he recognized what would be done to him. He was to be wheeled and braided – he glanced over at the Governor. Yes, there – lying on his knees – was a heavy iron bar. His limbs would be systematically broken – at the joints and between them – with the iron rim of the wheel as the anvil and the bar as the hammer, and then his arms and legs would be woven into and out of the spokes of the wheel, the fractures providing the requisite flexibility. Death would come after hours – probably from thirst and blood-loss, although the torment might be cut short if a piece of marrow dislodged and made its way to the heart.

His screaming remains would be tied into the wheel at the wrists and ankles, and the whole assembly hauled on high and mounted on the framework where all could see him. Edmund hung his head. The Governor was right – no-one would follow a man who died like that. Not if he stayed dead.

"You have me," said Edmund quietly. "Let my people go."

The blow was devastating and unexpected – Gallowgore hefted the six-foot wide wheel and slammed the rim into Edmund's chest. He crashed backwards, falling to the ground half-stunned, the coppery taste of blood fresh in his mouth and a vacuum where his lungs should be, as the crowd bayed for blood.

"Let them go, calf?" growled the Minotaur, grabbing Edmund by the shackles around his wrists and hauling him upright, "We don't plan to hurt them – we plan to recruit them." It turned to face the trembling group of wounded Narnians. "Strike your King, or his fate will be yours."

Eyes widened in terrified shock and horror as the group of forest animals and Dwarfs trembled, caught in a dreadful indecision. And then Edmund caught their eyes and gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head.

The first blows were cursory – mere taps, really, yet they still stung on Edmund's bruised and battered flesh. But as Gallowgore stood beside the weeping Narnians, howling and bellowing "More! More, you maggots or I gut you with my bare hands!" and the crowd of Islanders screamed invective and threats, the violence took on a self-sustaining momentum. Edmund's subjects were outside of themselves now, so caught up in their own survival – their courage broken and destroyed by the terrors they had witnessed and been threatened with – they struck and spat and sobbed with all their might. It took blows from Gallowgore and the soldiers to drive them away from him – they stood a little apart, shocked and horrified by the terrible storm that had passed through them, the treachery terror had engendered in their souls. Gallowgore stooped and hauled the semi-conscious King upright.

Where his skin was not bruised it was broken and plastered with blood. One eye was puffed closed and his dark hair was plastered to his skull with sweat and mud. The bandages on his naked chest were torn and tattered, fresh blood leaking from wounds that had scabbed-over during the day. But the thing that hurt the Narnians most was that the freshest marks were claw scratches.

"You still say you are King of these people?" Gallowgore snarled, its massive arm encompassing them in a derisive sweep, "After what they did to you?" Edmund swallowed the mixture of blood and saliva that had collected in his mouth to lubricate his throat.

"It is you who say I am," he said as loudly as he could, his clear voice ringing over the courtyard, "You would not be so afraid of me if I was not." Gallowgore snorted, its breath condensing in the cold air, and grabbed a sword from a soldier who stood near at hand.

"Then, _your majesty,_" it snarled, beating the sharp steel into a circle with its bare hands, "you need a crown." With a sudden cruelty, it jammed the twisted circlet onto Edmund's head, forcing the King to his knees with a scream of pain, blood oozing down his face and neck. The rim of the wheel slammed firmly against his shoulder and Gallowgore snorted "March."

And so Edmund did; rising to his feet and setting his shoulder to the cold iron, gritting his teeth through the pain and agony, moving step by inexorable step towards his own execution. His feet and legs were leaden, still constrained in armor and heavy boots, and his head and mind reeled on the edge of delirium. The exhaustion was complete – he had no idea where the strength or even the will to continue came from.

He fell, slipping on the snow on the ground, crashing down onto the flags with a crunch. The wheel slipped from his hands and tumbled as well. Slowly, shakily, with a volition he did not recognize, he stood, righted the wheel and began to move again.

His eyes slid left – taking in the towering eastern wall of the city, now covered with bright, fresh ivy; the one bright spot in a dark universe it seemed, for he looked through gray-dimmed vision over the heads of a crowd in dingy clothes. They screamed for his blood, shouting obscenities at him, calling for his death. Those nearest to him lashed out with feet and fists and boots.

As he fell for the second time, a single tear welled in his eye. _I came to save you! I came here to set you free, and this is how you repay me? I long to gather you under my protection, and you refuse._ With an effort, he raised himself to his knees and grasped the wheel again, hauling it upright and walking forwards.

He had come now to a boarded slope, a ramp made of planks that lead to the platform of his execution, upon which the Governor was standing. Gallowgore jabbed him in the back with the butt of its ax, and Edmund shifted his grip and – gritting his teeth – shoved the heavy wheel up the slope.

It wasn't really possible, but desperation tipped the scales. Edmund found the energy from somewhere to make it to the top of the ramp, and onto the stone platform. There, his knees gave way for the third time and he slumped to the ground, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his face pressed gratefully to the cold stone. He heard Gallowgore stump up the ramp behind him and the bone-on-stone noise as it came onto the dais. With a grinding shriek and the sparking crescendo as iron dragged on rock, the Minotaur hauled the wheel away from Edmund and placed it in the center of the platform where all the crowd could see it.

"Is this your savior?" cried the Governor, standing and addressing the people gathered before him, "Is this your King?"

The crowd were beaten – for one hundred years they had been kept in terror, sustained on the hope of a savior who would come and drive the Governor's troops into the sea. And now, they saw that savior lying broken and bloody above them, abandoned by his allies and incapable of even lifting his head, let alone defeating the Governor.

"_We have no Queen but Jadis!_" the crowd cried with one voice. And the Governor smiled, raising the iron bar above his head. He nodded at Gallowgore, who dragged Edmund upright and held him before the crowd.

"Behold the man!" thundered the Governor, as Edmund's blood and sweat dripped onto the snow beneath him. "This is your King?"

"_We have no Queen but Jadis!_"

The Governor's voice rose to a perfect scream. "Do you accept my rule, in the name of the Empress Jadis?"

"_We have no Queen but Jadis!_" the crowd howled back. With a ghastly smile on his dour face the Governor turned to Edmund.

"Do you see now, boy?" he whispered, "Do you see the power I hold?" Edmund raised his battered head and tried to focus his bloodshot eyes. And then his vision sharpened and he looked beyond the Governor to the far wall of the courtyard, above the guarded gate, beyond the hostile and terrified crowd.

There, standing on the very top of the parapet, his mane blowing in the sea breeze and his golden fur glowing in the noonday sun, stood Aslan. He threw back his head and opened his mouth as if to give a great roar, but no sound echoed over the courtyard. Instead, a gentle breeze wafted into Edmund's tired face and a delicious smell washed over him. And, as if from far away, he heard the wild, deep voice he loved and obeyed;

"I never said it would be easy, I said it wouldn't be impossible. I never said you'd win, I said you didn't have to lose. I never said I'd always be there, I said you'd never be alone."

Impossibly, against all odds, Edmund felt strength and clarity flow back into his frame. His wounds still hurt and he was still weak and wounded and his bones were still broken, but the core of steel that marked him as a monarch of Narnia shone out of his eyes again. The Governor saw it and – with a stunned expression – drew back a step.

"You hold nothing," said Edmund decisively as the great western gate opened and a regal woman in silver and white walked through at the head of an impressive entourage of wolves and Dwarfs and Dryads, lead there by three scruffily-dressed human soldiers. "You have no power over me. This is finished."

Gallowgore dropped Edmund to the floor as he and the Governor stared – for different reasons, but with equal incomprehension – at the woman in white. Flanked by snarling wolves and hissing Dryads, she raised her voice;

"Your time is done, traitor!"


	32. The Fall of Narrowhaven

**Chapter Thirty-Two : The Fall of Narrowhaven**

The Governor sensed the danger immediately. "This is _not_ her Majesty!" he hissed at Gallowgore – only to see a flicker of doubt in the Minotaur's eyes. Briefly, even he wondered if reports of her death had not been greatly exaggerated – for the figure on the other side of the great courtyard did indeed look like the Witch herself. This thought, however, did not last long – there was nothing of the cold darkness that had swept from Jadis about this woman.

He would have found the cold darkness more comforting, for the warmth he could see with his witch-sight flowing from the silver-armored female was dangerous and terrible; wild and free and noble. A magic older and greater than his, and stronger – even though it did not come from within her but rather from without. A faint whisper of worry brushed at his skin, like the blowlamp's kiss on plumbing before it collapses into molten lead.

Gallowgore narrowed its liquid eyes for a splintered second, its minute brain turning alternative scenarios over in its horned head. If Jadis had truly come to the Islands, that changed the balance of power completely – it might very well be time for a new Governor, one truly loyal to Jadis and her ideals and who held power by might rather than sorcery. It weighed its ax in its hands and considered its options.

"This woman is not Jadis!" screamed one of the human soldiers with her, "She and her invaders are Narnians and enemies of the Queen!" Rapine was not surprised by this turn of events – one hundred years as a stone made one cynical to even the most seeming-noble motives – but Elizabeth was shocked; seeing – perhaps for the first time – treachery in the face of true forgiveness.

"You planned to betray me?" she asked, incredulous. The man's plan flashed through her mind in a split second – lie to her to survive until they got to Narrowhaven, and then unmask her here so the Governor would reward him. "After I forgave you? Of all the poisonous little . . . !"

On the raised dais, Edmund realized a fundamental truth about himself; he was – and always had been, ever since the days when his ambitions were no loftier than petty childish torments towards Lucy – a planner. He believed in proper preparation, in devices and stratagems, in options and exit-strategies, in methods and systems.

It was perhaps ironic he was at his best thinking on his feet, in those moments when action must be created from a swirl of movements and barely-aware thoughts.

_Such a time,_ he reflected, _was now_.

Gritting his teeth against the pain and pushing through the weakness and weariness of his bruised body and cracking muscles, he slammed a kick into the shin of Gallowgore, more to anger the beast than anything else.

The Minotaur barely felt the blow, yet his rage flowed like wine as Edmund dived clear of the instinctively-angry strike from its ax. The great gleaming blade arched down, smashing into the stone flags with a shrieking of steel and shower of sparks. The King rolled sideways as the monster snapped its weapon upwards, displaced air ruffling his blood- and sweat-coated hair and whistling in his ear.

"Kill the Narnians!" roared the Governor, pointing at the false-Jadis and her bodyguard. He was merely angered – he did not see how the score of prisoners (not even the one who appeared to be avoiding Gallowgore's best strokes) and the twenty or so Narnians with the silver-clad bitch could possibly be a threat; the courtyard was full of his troops. Briefly, he wondered if ordering the death of the false Witch might cause him problems later on – but he reasoned that the Minotaurs would absolutely not believe it was her once she had proven easy to kill.

Of course, Elizabeth was many things – not all of them what she was supposed to be, but she was working on it. None of them, however, were easy to kill. Behind her, the traitor whipped his sword from its scabbard and made to strike her head from her shoulders.

The haute-piece of her right pauldron would probably have saved her neck, for he was not aiming high enough nor at a sufficiently acute angle – but that became moot as she half-turned her head, reversed her grip on the spike of silver pretending to be a wand and drove it, with a deadly, casual awfulness, directly into the orbit of his eye.

The man convulsed, his sword juddering down onto her shoulder and rattling against the stop-rib of her armor She drove an explosive kick into the dead man's midsection and sent him flying back, even as she unfolded his cold fingers from the hilt of his sword with her left hand. Her right snatched Swanwhite's sword from its scabbard in a twinkling of light as Rapine pulled down another soldier.

With a great swing that exposed the lie women couldn't throw she hurled the soldier's sword towards the raised dais where the Governor stood and Edmund fought the Minotaur. "Help the prisoners!" she screamed, deflecting a blow from the last of the traitors and hacking him down with the return stroke, "I'll hold here!"

Up on the balcony, Edmund placed his hands on the balustrade, vaulting over the side and out over the crowd as another blow from the massive Minotaur came arcing down. Gripping the thick stone rail and with his hands as far apart as the chain would allow, he braced himself against the wall of the dais as the ax razored the air where he had been a splintered second before.

The tempered edge of the blade, propelled by the titanic muscles of the Minotaur, came crashing down on the iron chain, shattering one of the links with a noise like a pistol shot, and then careened through the stone railing. Sparks and shattered splinters of rock and dust and fume rose as the balustrade collapsed and the Minotaur pitched forward.

His hands free now, Edmund shifted his grip from the collapsing rock and grabbed the greasy, matted hair of the Minotaur's wrist, hauling himself up its outstretched arm. His foot thrust off the pommel of its ax and his hand found one of its horns. With a desperate spasm of strength he drove his armored knee into its face, feeling the satisfying crunch as its slobbering nose yielded.

Grabbing its other horn with his free hand, Edmund vaulted over its head, somersaulting between its magnificent antlers and landing with an easy flex of his knees behind it. His hand snapped up and plucked the spinning sword out of the air. With a contemptuous ease, his hand continued and refined the swing that the blade had been making in swirling loops as it spun towards him. He swung downwards, gutting one of the soldiers who was too foolish and slow to get out of the way, and leaped towards the leaden figure of the Governor.

The older man leaped back, reaching inside his voluminous metallic robe and pulling out the shard of crystalline ore that was his wickedly barbed wand. His dull gray eyes narrowed and blasphemous syllables bubbled on his chiseled lips as he pointed the tip of the wand at Edmund, his other hand reaching for and drawing his own dark-bladed sword.

Edmund simply stepped inside his guard and – spinning the sword like a corkscrew – brought the edge of the blade sharply against and through the shaft of the wand. Brittle metal fractured with a burst of dark light and a shriek of terrible energy, a sphere of eye-boiling brightness bursting from the Governor's right hand as brutally sharp shrapnel scattered everywhere.

From out of that light, a dark sword came spinning, chopping and lunging, reaching inside Edmund's guard and leading towards the right hand side of his naked chest – towards the pale, raised, looping scar that was already there.

Edmund swatted the blade aside with a casual ease that was terrible to see. "I've been here before," he said shortly, reversing his sword and slamming the Governor in the face with the heavy pommel, bones snapping and fracturing with an oath of pain.

Out in the courtyard proper, Elizabeth's bodyguard had hesitated a second as their mistress ordered them to desert her, but another screamed order silenced any protests and sent all twenty of them running as hard as they could towards the chained Narnians. Soldiers blocked their path, spears leveled at the onrushing tide of wolves. "Claw a path for the Dwarfs!" howled Rapine, "For Edmund and for Aslan!"

The terror of a Talking Wolf made soldiers hesitate for a split-second – which was about half-a-minute too long when dealing the Colonel. He and his lupine elite crashed into the humans, shattering their bones and ripping out their throats.

Alone, over-extended, unguarded, Elizabeth stood in the space before the gate and stooped to take up another sword with her left hand as warriors sprinted through the crowd towards her, Minotaurs' hooves trampling the snow and Ogres' iron-shod boots striking sparks from the flags. Above her, keening cries – of warning, perhaps, or rage – shrieked from the throats of something that might have seemed quasi-human, but was only all the more horrible for that.

On the dais, the Governor staggered back – wondering how this boy could have shattered his wand so easily and from where he had found the strength to fight after the brutalization Gallowgore had put him through. Briefly, even as the Minotaur leaped to kill the boy, he wondered if the monster might not have betrayed him – perhaps this beast wanted him dead and reasoned Edmund would help him do that? Without his wand, he stood little chance against the Minotaur and, when – as was inevitable – Gallowgore had killed Edmund, it might very well turn on him.

Out in the courtyard, the prisoners had been freed – those little stunted freaks always carried chisels, didn't they? Islands iron was as nothing to Narnian steel, and the chains were off in seconds. Near the gate, that bloody woman was still standing and so – realizing that even with forty warriors, they stood no chance against the full might of his forces gathered here – the Governor howled, "Get some troops in here! Kill the bitch in the silver! I'll eat her heart!"

"_Aslan!_" screamed Elizabeth, everything in her previous life forgotten as she felt herself slip effortlessly into the now. Five men met her charge – she slaughtered them with sweeping Florentine strokes and left their blood as vapor in the frozen air. From the guardhouse of the castle, a tide of soldiers was pouring. Her left sword held reversed and her right in line with her forearm, Elizabeth spun out of the way of an Ogre's blow and hamstrung the monster, even as she slashed the throat of a Black Dwarf that appeared from nowhere, swinging a mattock at her chest. She risked a glance over to her troops and the former-prisoners – they were charging through the crowd to meet the Governor's men, but there were simply too few of them.

Edmund could feel his wounds begin to catch up with him – the pain was slowing him down, interfering with the smooth flow of his breathing and leeching his blows of their strength and speed. He'd spent too lavishly of his reserves – and of the strength Aslan had given him – to drive the Governor back, and now he could feel his time running out. Desperately, he swept a numbing blow aside and glanced down into the courtyard. The sea of humanity was mostly natives Islanders, but pouring in were the Governor's troops. There was no time to count swords, but by volume it seemed as if there was anything up to the two-hundred humans and one-hundred gigantic monsters he had feared. Above him, the leather-winged, hag-faced Harpies shrieked and made to sweep down into the melee.

_All too few,_ he thought desperately as he saw brave Rapine sprinting towards the heart of his foes, _All too few. I need the Islanders – dammit all, why don't they fight? For me or him – I don't much care right now! Just get it over with!_ A blow from Gallowgore drove him to his knees and his full attention snapped back to his duel.

The Islanders were milling around – in dull confusion, trying to avoid the soldiers and the Narnians, not wishing to get involved, uncomprehending of what was going on, cowed, beaten and their courage gone. The Governor watched for a moment from the top of the stairs that lead from the dais, and then snapped his head upwards as the guards on the walls winded their horns.

"What is it?" he roared angrily. The answer came shouting back.

"My Lord, an army approaches out of the forest to the west! They will be at the walls in moments!" The Governor's face cycled through shock and horror to determination in less than a second, and he turned and sprinted up the stairs to stand on the west wall, looking out at the great force that ran for the walls.

"Faugh!" snorted the Governor in derision, turning to move down the stairs again, "Two hundreds – mostly animals – and with no siege engines! They are fools to assault this wall – shoot them at your . . ." He stopped as, impossibly, the wall he was standing on began to flex and tremble, rocking like a boat in a heavy sea.

Below them, Rapine and his elite smashed into the Governor's lines like a thunderbolt, men falling in the onrushing gray tide. Dryads and Dwarfs followed, and for a second, it might have been won.

But the numbers were too great – it was a simple case of mathematics. Minotaurs and Ogres waded into the fray, hurling wolves around like puppies and sending Dryads scattering. The humans closed ranks against the Dwarfish assault and, shrieking ear-piercing cries, the haggard horrors of the harpies screamed from the skies in a storm of talons.

With an inhuman effort, Elizabeth hacked down the Minotaur and three humans she faced in a welter of blows, barely feeling their return strokes and ignoring the blood that leaked inside her armor

"Men of the Islands!" cried Elizabeth, taking advantage of the scant seconds of freedom the terror of her swordwork had bought her, "Behold, Elizabeth Agnoli of Mayfair! I am not from Narnia, but I fight! I fight with King Edmund. I fight against a tyrant who holds you under his boot! If you would be free men, then you must fight! Join us now, join King Edmund!"

There was a second, a moment of time when Elizabeth prayed as hard as she ever had, when nothing happened. And then, like a fire crackling through a wheat field, the Islanders stirred and murmured, and the murmurs turned to shouts and the shouts to battlecries. "For Narnia!" screamed one. "King Edmund!" howled another.

Everywhere, the Islanders ran forward, their weakness and terror forgotten, their oppression a fuel feeding the engine of their vengeance. She found herself fighting alongside untrained, enraged men and women who simply swamped their foes with numbers and anger and impossible hatred. For a second, it was the most amazing thing she had ever seen.

And then something happened that blew that all away.

The western wall of the city – forty feet high if it were an inch, made of blocks of mortared stone that must have weighed a tonne – simply fell down, buckling outwards in places, inwards in others. Great gaps appeared between the stones, showers of powered mortar falling outwards as the tendrils and vines of the ivy wrenched themselves free. Stones tumbled away, crashing to the ground with a thunderous cacophony of screaming stone, even as the parapet above flexed and collapsed, sending soldiers and crenelations alike falling to the ground. A few of the men on the top of the wall – the Governor included – managed to scramble and dive onto a section of the wall that still stood, but the rest fell into the hundred-foot wide breach in the wall.

Where once the wall of a great fortress had stood, now only a tangled ruin of crumbled and shattered stone lay. In the middle of the breach, standing on the rock, Hedera raged, branches and vines whipping out of the fractured rock and back into her. Behind her, seen through the smoke and fog and fume of blasted rock, Michael's army charged, swords drawn and with the Warlord in the van.

"_I am Dryad!_" thundered Hedera, drunk with stolen power and potency from the ancient oak she had murdered. "_Hear me roar!_" Looking towards her now – a towering figure of arboreal might, totally inhuman, strong beyond imagining and possessed of powers she could only guess at – Elizabeth felt her blood run cold. Thank Aslan they were on the same side.

Edmund and Gallowgore sprang apart, both breathing heavily and sweat beading on their brows. "You fight well for a calf," snarled the monster. Edmund smiled.

"You fight well for something that would do better in my pie," countered Edmund. "Do I have your surrender or needs must I kill you?"

The Minotaur's answer was an enraged roar and a hurled ax. The weapon flew out of its grasp and spun towards Edmund's legs. Summoning the last ounce of his strength, Edmund barely managed to leap over the tumbling weapon, even as Gallowgore lowered its head and charged.

Many men and women had ended their lives impaled on the points of those horns – and their blood still clung to them in a thick coat – but the monster had reckoned without Edmund's speed and skill. Moving with the grace of a matador, he seemed to glide to one side and brought his sword whistling down in a gleaming arc. The blade passed between two vertebrae, severing the spinal cord, cutting through tendons and flesh and sinew and skin.

For a second, Gallowgore's headless corpse stood upright, arms flailing, blood fountaining from the stump of neck, and then it pitched forward and tumbled into the courtyard below, splattering into the melee. Edmund ran a bruised hand through his bloody hair, wincing as wounds were pulled open, and sprang down the stairs to aid his troops.

Michael and his two hundred warriors – those who had survived the assault on Avra bolstered by the resistance there and the villagers who had taken up arms – were in the midst of the melee now. A gleaming blade shone in the Warlord's fist as he stood on a tumbled column and roared battlecries and exhortations that seemed to stun those foes near him, leaving them easy prey for his sword. A harpy shrieked out of the sky towards him, talons and teeth leering for his face. He stepped to one side and smashed the creature into bleeding ruin on the ground with a single sweep, reaching up and grabbing the wing of another one. With a grotesque wrench, he tore its wing from the socket with a welter of blood and casually threw the ripped leather away.

It was moments since the wall had fallen and the rock-dust had not even begun to settle. But even in that short amount of time the outcome of the battle was clear – the Narnians were going to win. The battle of swords and flesh was a foregone conclusion after the victory of hearts and minds; the Islanders were fighting for the Narnians now, and what they lacked in skill and weaponry they more than made up for in vigor

The Governor could see where this was heading – he could not win here. Thundering commands to those troops that were not engaged in the chaotic battle going on in the courtyard, he sprinted along the top of the wall, seeking to escape. Through the breach in the wall, unengaged troops were fleeing.

Below, Elizabeth slashed down yet another foe, her make-up running and her hair in disarray, and saw the Governor running from the field. "Not on my watch, matey," she murmured, fighting her way clear of the knot of battle she was tied up in and sprinting for the parapet stairs. Beneath her, the fight raged unabated; Edmund was fighting in the center of his lupine bodyguard, the Colonel keeping the exhausted boy from harm while his troops chewed through their foes. Michael and the heavy troops from the assault on Avra were finishing off the Minotaurs gathered in the center of the courtyard.

A few of the Governor's soldiers saw their fellows fleeing, pouring through the gates and out of Narrowhaven, and the Governor himself running, and realized the game was up. They threw down their weapons and threw up their hands, crying, "We surrender! We only fought for him because we had to!"

But the rage of the persecuted Islanders would not be slaked so easily with such a gesture, and they pressed forward. "Kill 'em all!" howled Hedera, "Aslan will know his own!" She spun to her Dryads, "Slaughter all the humans if you have to – don't let a single monster escape alive!"

Elizabeth somehow heard these words about the tumult of battle and checked her headlong sprint up the stairs. She knew that every second she delayed – and she was panting uncontrollably by now, her breath rasping in her chest and her limbs heavy, the exertions of the battle catching up with her – was a second where the Governor might escape, but she could not allow such a thing to go unchallenged. She realized, with a shock of horror, she was mortally afraid of the Dryad. Despite the fact they were on the same side the Dryad's view of what Aslan wanted was radically different.

Was such a sectarian divide what Aslan wanted? Absolutely not – but neither would he view a desire for peaceful ecumenism as an excuse for wholesale slaughter.

She spun and pointed down into the courtyard with her sword. "Stand where you are! He who takes an innocent life answers with his own!" For a second, the Narnians and Islanders hesitated and paused. "For Narnian shame," she roared, "are we become our enemy?"

"They sided with the Witch!" screamed Hedera, "They deserve death!" She faced her Dryads, "Kill them all!"

"_No!_" shouted Elizabeth in a voice she scarcely knew she possessed. The Narnians paused again, glancing up at the human dressed in the armor of the last Queen of their land; the Queen who had resisted the Witch even though it cost the lives of her and her family and so many of her people. She was right in what she said but, more importantly, she was _human_.

Hedera's eyes narrowed with anger and frustration as Elizabeth smiled mockingly at her and resumed her run up the stairs. She gained the parapet with moments to spare, coming to a panting halt feet in front of the Governor. The man skidded to a stop and took in the measure of his adversary.

Elizabeth was certainly a formidable warrior – the numbers of his troops she had left dead behind her attested to that. But she was tired and drained, breathing heavily and with exhaustion setting up a terrible trembling in her limbs. Blood leaked through the gaps in her armor and trickled down her cheek from a glancing graze. She was younger and fitter than the Governor, but he was taller, stronger and fresher. His metallic face twisted into a terrible smile and he lunged for her.

She blocked the blow with one of her swords and lashed out with the other, the blade being foiled by his chain armor He lashed out with a punch, smashing her in the jaw and sending her staggering backwards, her lip split and bloody. Her next blow he took on the armor of his forearm and battered her other blade aside with his own and kicked her in the stomach.

Her armor held, but she retreated another pace. Her lungs simply wouldn't work, her swords felt as heavy as fallen trees and the armor itself seemed to be her enemy, hampering her movements. Her exhaustion and fatigue were all-but complete now; she had been fighting too-long and too-hard in the courtyard.

_Damn it all to Hell – I've been pushed around by men all my life. Not any more – I've just got to send this bastard home in a box._

She caught the swing of his sword in her crossed blades and spun them all clear of the space between them, his hand and the hilt of the sword clattering on the crenelations of the parapet. A twist of her wrist and his sword fell from numbed fingers, falling past the two hundred feet of wall and cliff into the churning sea below. Even as it did so, she slashed upward with her blade, cutting a great gouge from his chin to his brow and bisecting his eye.

He screamed in agony and staggered backwards, clutching at his face with his hand, blood and aqueous humor leaking through his fingers. Elizabeth, sensing victory, lunged with her sword.

He stepped to one side, grabbing her wrist with his free hand and then twisted his hip, forcing her backwards against the low wall of the parapet. His other hand was off his face now, the fingers – slick with his own blood and juices – tight around her throat and squeezing. She dropped her swords and grabbed at his wrists, trying to pry him off her. His grip was like iron. She was choking now, her vision dimming to red . . . darker red . . . swimming with black . . .

She brought her knee sharply up into his groin and he folded over, his hands relaxing on her throat. She coughed and wrenched herself free, unable to do anything except lean on the wall and suck air into her lungs. The Governor – his face a bleeding ruin of bone and slashed flesh – lunged for her again, his hands slamming her in the shoulders.

She tumbled backwards, rolling over the low wall and falling off the parapet.

A moment later, the Governor peered over the wall, expecting to see her body impacting with bone-crushing force into the waves below. He did not see that, but he still smiled at the news his one remaining eye brought him. A few feet below him, Elizabeth hung by one hand from a protruding stone, clinging on like grim death with just her fingertips. He face worked with frantic effort as her other hand and feet scrabbled for a hold, but she was mortally afraid of dislodging her tenuous grip on the stone.

The inch-wide ledge she was clinging to was snow-covered and slick as ice. Any sudden movement threatened to send her plummeting into the hungry sea churning below her. The weight of her armor on her shoulders was dragging her down, eroding the time she had left.

A drop of something fell on her from above. She looked up, to find another drop of mingled sweat and blood fall from the Governor's ruined eye landing on her face. He laughed.

"Well," he said evenly, "it seems as if our little duel is over. I'd stay to watch you fall, but I have an appointment elsewhere." He smiled. "Don't think the fact you've beaten me here means you've won the war – my forces will regroup. Edmund's little crusade is over – too bad you won't be there to see it." He gathered the phlegm in his mouth and spat in her face, turning away and leaving her alone.

Elizabeth felt the mucus drip down her cheek and into the gorget of her armor. She could not risk the frantic movement that would be needed to get another hand to the ledge – such a thing would loosen her grip fatally. Even now, she could feel her fingers slipping inexorably off the wall, ready to send her crashing down into the pounding surf below. Queen Susan might be able to survive such a dive, but not her – and certainly not in armor

_Is this where I die?_ she wondered. _Are these the final moments of my life?_ _Maybe it is,_ she reasoned, _maybe I have done all I came to this world to do. I killed the Giant, and I turned the Islanders to Edmund's side – and I have found Aslan again._ Even in her dire predicament, the name of the Lion brought a smile to her lips. _I would have liked to have seen him once more_ she thought sadly.

Regrets coursed through her – regrets not for things she had not done, but for things she would now never get to do. Things she could not do now – she could not see Edmund's inevitable victory over the Governor, she could not see Michael again.

She would go to her grave never making peace with her father.

It wasn't fair! She'd come so far and done so well – she'd outgrown the selfish child she was and had blossomed into something better and brighter and more glorious. Surely Aslan had things in mind for her? Surely there were things he needed her to do now she had been prepared? Surely it wasn't simply enough for _her_ to be redeemed by the life she had led?

A tear welled in her eye as she realized, with crystal-clear clarity, that it absolutely was.

_No-one is ever told any story but their own_. She could almost hear the Lion saying the words. And so this wonderful, glorious story she had been told was simply her own and no-one else's – she had been redeemed by what she had experienced and nothing more was needed. There was no need for her vocation to be anything more than entirely for her; if everyone lived such a vocation, the world would be perfect.

Her fingers slipped off the ledge, and she fell.


	33. The Choices of Susan

**Part Three : Vocation **

**Chapter Thirty-Three : The Choices of Susan **

"You wished to see me, General Oreius?"

The Monarch-in-Residence's liquid diamond voice broke the Centaur's reverie. He turned to see her standing alone in the doorway of the Chamber of Instruments, gleaming in the gold and silk armor she had taken to wearing at the court now that all three of her siblings were at war. He bowed from the waist in the Centaur fashion, his strong hand on his naked chest. "I did, your majesty," he rumbled, "Ill-tidings have come to my ears."

Susan's ivory face paled slightly as she moved into the room – judging by those who were in the Chamber, she could take an educated guess at the nature of the tidings. Marshal Tumnus, acting Seneschal of Cair Paravel, stood alongside the Captains of the Cair – stocky Dwarfs and elegant Dryads. Lurking on the fringes of the group, gleaming in soft red fur, the vulpine shape of Reynard – the spy even Edmund couldn't out-guess – waited patiently.

The last few weeks had been a unique experience for Susan – not in being the Monarch-in-Residence at the Cair, nor indeed acting as the High Queen (for Peter was perpetually in the North and she was older than either Edmund or Lucy) – but being alone in a way she had never experienced before. Her family – all of them, now – were far away, in armor and on horseback, fighting wars to defend the beating heart of Narnia that – to many – she represented. She was used to Peter being away, returning every month or so with a new wound and new tales, sometimes even new songs and new allies. Edmund – his half-smile perpetually lurking behind his gray eyes – would come and go as he pleased, but always make time for his favorite sister; giving gifts that were meaningless (how many pieces of amber from the Western Wild did she _really_ need?) save that they gave him an excuse to see her. Lucy – her constant companion, joyous and bright and wonderful - had always looked to Susan as a mother.

But now? Peter had been away for a month and a half, embarked on a campaign against foes even Edmund's diplomacy had failed to tame. Lucy was far to the West, in the area of Narnia where more blood had flowed than any other. And Edmund – dear Edmund, her favorite brother, the one who had always been there for her even when he wasn't there for himself – was as far East as any Narnian had been in one hundred years.

For the last month and a half, Susan had dwelt in gilded armor – armor made for her by _jewelers_ and _seamstresses_ rather than armorers and leatherworkers. She had worn it in much the same way as she carried a blade – in order to show loyalty to her family as they risked everything. But was it more than a sign or shadow? Could she really command the Cair at war?

The light armor did not protect her, but it did hold her back; which in itself was – she supposed – a form of protection. But, over the last month and a half – due in no small part to encountering the shockingly-independent Elizabeth – she had realized that to hide behind walls and others was simply a form of imprisonment. No matter how clean the windows were, you still couldn't feel the wind. In Peter they found their warrior-King, in Edmund the diplomat, in Lucy the joy of life . . . and in her? The Queen who simply had to be beautiful and generous and welcoming and naught else.

Now she stood alone at the Cair – and all authority rested with her. She had tried to find out how the war was progressing – against her own orders and those of her brothers (orders she had asked them to give, if the truth were known) – and felt herself colliding with not only her own previous desires, but what Oreius and the rest wanted her to be.

She flexed her shoulders inside the gilded cage she felt around her and spread her elegant hands. "What are these tidings, General?" The Centaur pointed with a swagger stick at the paper-flagged armies on the painted land before him. Susan turned to see a number of black pawns – a forest of them, crawling like ants over the map. There seemed to be no order to them, but each was marked with a black flag bearing the sign of a six-pointed snowflake. There were more than she had been lead to believe – they seemed to outnumber the red ones marked with the oak leaves, wolf head, rising sun, twisting vines and rearing lion. Susan arched an eyebrow and faced the Centaur. "Our foes are more numerous than I was told," she said accusingly. The Centaur bent his head deferentially.

"Your majesty, I assure you that we have kept nothing from you. This intelligence arrived this morning, brought by Reynard." The fox bowed. "The forces of the Witch gather, and soon will form an army to march on the Cair."

Susan swallowed heavily and clenched her fists so she could not lean on the table for support. The nightmare she had hidden in her breast – that war would come to the bright heart of Narnia south of the River when she was alone – was coming true. "What? How . . . how is this possible? Where have they come from?" Oreius gestured for Reynard to speak.

"Your majesty," he began, his voice – as ever – smooth and pleasant and somehow sarcastic, "as you well know, when your Royal Brothers defeated the Witch not all of her army was destroyed – the evil brood fled the battle and went into hiding. Although strident efforts have been made to stamp them out, we have long known that pockets of resistance have remained." His voice trailed off into uncertainty, "It is perhaps possible that allies of the Witch from outlying lands – from Telmar, or Archenland; Ettinsmoor, perhaps – have made their way to Narnia. The creatures may be breeding in the central mountains." His voice fell to silence.

"This is a failure of intelligence, your majesty," said one of the Captains softly. Susan had been thinking the same thing, but knew too little of the practice of deceit to be sure. She had not expressed her opinion in case it was wrong and – as she was Queen – was regarded as the truth. Reynard looked for a second like he might bite the Dwarf, but then bowed his head again.

"And it is one that I – in the absence of the Spymistress – accept full responsibility for," he said tautly, "Had the full extent of the strength of the Witch's forces been known, troop dispositions would have been different and these enemies would be in our outlying territories, rather than marching on our capital." He lowered his eyes, ashamed, as Susan raised her left hand with an abrupt motion that scattered motes of gold-stained light across the room.

"No, Reynard – recriminations avail us nothing here." She closed her eyes and wished against hope that her siblings – even one of them – were present. Even if it weren't Peter or Edmund – who would know what to _do_ – it could be Lucy who could provide her with . . . something. Suddenly, keenly, Susan felt the jab of her youth and inexperience propelled into her flesh by the certain knowledge that these soldiers were looking to her for leadership. She couldn't do this alone . . .

From somewhere outside the Chamber of Instruments, a delicious strain of music floated into the silent, stone-clad room. For a second, the silk and gold around her roughened and became warm fur. Susan's emerald eyes snapped open.

"Do we have sufficient forces at the Cair to ride and meet them?" Oreius shook his head.

"Not by my council, your majesty – the only Narnian forces available for such an endeavor are in the South, the East and at the Cair itself. These number some . . ."

"Six hundred in total, not including the citizen militia raised in the South," said Susan mechanically, "some one hundred and fifty of which are stationed at the Cair." She paused as the Captains and Oreius looked at her with wonder. "You've been presenting the logistics reports to my Marshal since King Edmund left – you just assumed I couldn't read," she said silverly. Oreius coughed with apologizing embarrassment and continued.

"The forces of the Witch," _How odd_, reflected Susan distractedly, _even a year and a half after her death she still defines our battles,_ "are unlikely to be lead by a fool – they will not choose open battle unless they have to. Their strategy will be to despoil the South and East and then lay siege to the Cair and starve it to submission. It is my belief that they have sufficient forces to do that and we have insufficient forces to break the siege."

"The Grand Army of the High King in the North," asked Susan briskly, "Can we get word to him and have him pull his forces back?" Oreius shook his head again.

"The latest reports from the High King indicate that the war against the Giants is going ill, your majesty." Susan straightened her spine, realizing just how bad things must be if Peter said they were not going well. "The Giants of Harfang have attacked in force now it is the end of Winter; he does not expect victory quickly and expresses regret that he must revise upwards his estimation for the time taken to accomplish the Giants' defeat. His army is engaged over a fifty mile front – it is clear he cannot withdraw in both a quick and orderly manner." Oreius held out a sealed scroll to her; she barely glanced at it and held it in both hands to stop their trembling. It was Peter's private message to her – where he would call her "Su" and apologize for not managing to do what he had promised in time. He would say he was sorry he would not be home for the Spring Dances. Nothing of the war would be in there – which was exactly what she had requested and exactly what she now realized she did not want.

"Send word to him anyway," said Susan as calmly as she could manage. One of the Captains opened his mouth and made to speak. "Yes, I know withdrawal is not ideal and may lead to loss of territory in the North; make the High King aware of the full situation and bid him make his own choice." She paused, realizing that her brother would probably come howling from the North like a steel-tipped gale if he thought for a second she was in danger and the rest of Narnia be damned. "_I_ shall write the message," she said wearily – knowing that, despite the fact she was the one who wanted him here most of all, she was the only one who could possibly dissuade him from sacrificing everything he had won over the last month and a half to defend her.

Casting her eyes over the map, she pointed to the small cluster of red markers grouped in the Lantern Waste. The wolf heads of the forces of the West, the vines of the South and the suns of the East were – in the absence of any accurate intelligence of where the forces in that swirling war of ambush and counter-ambush were from day to day – neatly arranged around the lamp post. "Our forces to the West?" she asked, picking up the silver pin that represented Queen Lucy and cradling it in her hands. Perhaps the war in those far-flung lands was being won.

"Your Royal Sister and Marshal Nicodemus of the West report that, even with the additional forces from the armies of the South and East, they are pinned down and entangled," said a lean ashen wolf whose name Susan knew was Drax. He had arrived in the gray morning, the West's military ambassador to the Cair. "It is the Marshal's belief that, when the Duke of the Lantern Waste and his forces return, the war can be swiftly ended." The wolf flexed his neck grimly. "Many areas of the Lantern Waste have been lost, your majesty – the absence of the majority of the Lantern Waste elite under Colonel Rapine is keenly felt."

"Lost to whom?" asked Susan quietly.

"The People of the Toadstools have been unusually active, your majesty," said Drax, not answering the question directly, "and there are many wolves coming from the Western Wild. It is well-known that . . . _we_ fled there when the Witch was defeated and the Silver Citadel fell." The wolf lowered his head in embarrassment as Susan blanched and bit the inside of her lip.

"Is Lu . . . Queen Lucy in danger?" she asked, twisting the pin desperately in her hands despite herself. The wolf bowed and did not directly answer again.

"To the best of my knowledge, your majesty, she is alive and well – or was, when I left the Lantern West yesterday morning. Marshal Nicodemus has taken personal care of her protection on the direct instructions of the Duke of the Lantern Waste." It was telling, perhaps, that Edmund's elite and friends did not call him King - a more personal form of address for them, signifying his connection to them. She was half-surprised Drax did not call him Lord of the Western Wild; but that might have been just a little too much candor

Susan put the pin gently and with the utmost care back in the map in the center of the Cair, next to the ivory one that was hers. And then she pulled it roughly from the cork-backed canvas and threw it – almost angrily – over to the Lantern Waste. She brushed past her advisers, moving to the low table against the Eastern wall where the wooden pieces representing the crusade forces were neatly stacked – the Chamber of Instruments' map table did not include the Lone Islands and so, in the absence of anywhere else to put them, they lay here. The pieces were dusty, stacked like counters in a box or chessmen waiting to be put on the board. But she knew this was a lie; those forces – their flags displaying Edmund's wolf's head in the main, but with over a third bearing the lion rampant of the Grand Army – were engaged in a bloody crusade, out of range of help or succor To either provide or request, she reflected bitterly as she picked up the steel spike that represented her brother.

The other three pins – hers, Lucy's and the golden one that was Peter's – were topped with a representation of the presents they had received from Father Christmas on that Christmas morning that seemed so long ago. Susan's was a horn, Peter's a sword lying athwart a shield and Lucy's a bottle. But Edmund's pin . . . it was steel, chosen by Edmund himself. For months, it had been flat and plain and unadorned, simplicity itself piercing the map of Narnia as King Edmund the Just traveled from place to place with feverish energy. Had the pin been ivory or silver or gold its point would have been worn dull by repeated movements and replacements, and Susan now understood why Edmund had chosen the material he did – even if he ran himself ragged, his marker would remain pristine.

Susan turned it over in her delicate hands, wishing against anything that Eddie were there. Edmund would be able to take charge here – she could hand over the military issues to him. She looked at the wolf's head finial on the pommel of the spike; something he had had added to the pin when he negotiated the treaty with the wolves and named Nicodemus his Marshal. It was a mark of respect, of understanding where he came from, that the wolves had never forgotten.

Susan turned to Oreius. "Any news of Edmund?" she asked desperately. The Centaur shook his head.

"But, your majesty, I do not look for such news – his force would have made landfall a week ago at the earliest, and it is three weeks with these winds from the Islands to the Cair." Susan bent her dark head, feeling the dread weight of responsibility settle on her shoulders, accepting finally that she would have to make this decision on her own.

There was a pattern here that she could not see clearly – the forces of the Witch had been in decline over the past year and a half; Peter and Edmund had maintained that this was to be the final Winter of campaigning – the Spring would see the last of that evil brood stamped out. Edmund had promised victory in the Lantern Waste come the thaw. Peter maintained that the Giants' defeat would secure the northern border at the Shribble.

And now? Now the forces of Narnia were divided and scattered – a quarter of them in the Lone Islands, a third of them engaged against foreign invaders, and with the stronghold of the Witch's forces pacified and secured by an eighth. The great warlords of Narnia – Edmund, Peter, Coriadine, Nicodemus, Rapine – were dead or far away.

And it was _now_ that the forces of the Witch revealed themselves and marched on the Cair – when Narnia was vulnerable and lead by the last monarch who should fight a war. Waiting for just such a moment as this, Jadis' brood had lain quiet and patient, ready to spring forward when their assault would do most damage. At her lowest ebb, Narnia was attacked again.

There were no recriminations in Susan's mind – she was too tender-hearted for that. She could not bear to see anyone take responsibility for or suffer because of such a thing. Peter and Edmund had fought like lions to defend and secure their country. Hedera and Reynard and Cornelius had done their best to bring the intelligence to the councils of war. She would not blame them for these failures – and so the numbing sense of duty fell onto her like the armor of a Centaur.

_I can't do this on my own,_ she realized And then, just as suddenly, _I don't have to._

She was the Queen of Narnia – by the gift of Aslan. Her role – her responsibility, her vocation, her _job_ – was to rule in his name. And not just in his name, but in his _place_ and as if she were the Lion himself. Her decisions must reflect his wishes, his desires – for this was his country and, indeed, his world.

She held power and could exercise dominion only as the servant to Narnia and to Aslan. By giving of herself to the Lion and the country, she would receive the office of kingship and sovereignty over the land. "Behold the handmaid of the Lion," she said softly, "Let it be done according to your wishes." Calm surety descended on her – her hands felt light and free as if they were no longer on the reins of her life. What would happen would happen according to the will of Lion – nothing else mattered.

"Your majesty," said Oreius urgently, breaking into her reverie, "We must act swiftly. There are not sufficient forces at the Cair to resist the brood of the Witch – we must pull the forces of the South and East to the city in order to defend it." Susan looked at him with blazing eyes.

"And what of the people of the South and East?" she asked disgustedly, knowing very well what the Centaur was suggesting, "The citizen militia will not stand against such forces as _that_!" She gestured expansively, letting go of Edmund's pin. It careened into the black-flagged markers and scattered them – how she wished that could be the case! "If the brood of the Witch act as you say they will, we will be abandoning them to their deaths."

Drax had clearly learned much from his Duke – for his voice compelled attention and his words cut to the heart of the matter. "Your majesty," he growled softly, "you must know that _you_ are the target of this attack – not the people of Narnia, but its Queen. Your sister and brothers are engaged in their own wars, and this assault is clearly directed at you while a quarter of the Narnian forces are on foreign shores." There was no hint of disapproval of his Duke's actions in the wolf's tone, but it was clear enough to many it might not have come to this pass if Edmund had not sailed three weeks before.

"They believe, your majesty," said Reynard, "that by killing you they will end the prophecy – that the four thrones of the Cair will no longer be filled."

"There will come a day when we will die," said Susan firmly. Oreius interrupted her.

"Aye, your majesty – and that day will come sooner than you think if we do not defend you here. The city of the Cair can be defended against the forces of the Witch with five hundred soldiers – that will leave five-score or so to defend the South and East."

Susan shook her beautiful head. "Too few – I will not countenance the deaths of my people, General. I will not do it." Oreius appeared exasperated.

"Queen Susan!" he pleaded, "We cannot hold both the Cair and the lands! We cannot even be certain of holding the city – we only have food for two weeks, three at most. If the city is blockaded – as I believe it will be – we will have less than a month to break the siege or we will starve." Susan's stare was level and unflinching. "Your majesty, you are more important than the lives of those around you. All would unhesitatingly lay down their lives at your command."

"And I do not ask it," said Susan silverly. "I have made my choice – I will not abandon the people of Narnia to death and torment."

"Your majesty, I beg of you . . ." began the General again. Susan silenced him with a raised hand.

"How long do we have before the broods of the Witch are at the gates?" Oreius vacillated for a moment, unable to bring his military knowledge to the fore as he argued with her.

"Three days at the most, your majesty," said one of the Captains, "Maybe less." Susan nodded decisively.

"Very well." She moved to the table and – now that her mind was made up and her conscience clear – allowed herself to lean on it. "Send messages to the South – those who cannot fight," she did not say _women and children_ for she knew that the fiercest fighters among the cats were the females, "are to take what food they can and make for Archenland. I will send a message to King Lune begging for refuge for my people – we shall offer financial recompense for the service." She knew he would refuse it; she made a mental note to offer to teach Corin archery when he was old enough and had learned to stop hitting her on the nose.

"Can we not ask King Lune to send troops to our aid?" asked one of the Captains. Susan dismissed his suggestion with a flick of her wrist.

"The South will be denuded of troops – send sufficient with the refugees to guard and protect them. King Lune may very well have his hands full defending his borders from the forces of the Witch – he will offer what aid he can, I am certain. The rest of the forces in the South are to move north with all speed and defend the Cair." Her long fingers encompassed the Eastern woods with delicate gestures. "Have the troops here gather the people and protect them; they are to gather what food and possessions they can and bring them here." Her finger tapped urgently on a small town half a day's march north of the Cair. "This will act as a marshaling point – from here they will move as quickly as they may towards the Cair. My people will take shelter here. The armies will protect the columns, and all will gather in the city." The Captains looked at her as if she were out of her mind.

"Your majesty!" exclaimed a Dryad, "to move so many hundreds will take time!" Susan turned a withering gaze on the tree-spirit.

"Which is why I mean _now_, Captain," she said decisively. Tumnus – who, until now, had remained silent – raised his voice.

"It is a good plan, your majesty – although harboring so many in Cair Paravel will place a strain on our already meager resources and may limit the amount of time we can hold out." Susan shook her head.

"I do not look for forever – I look for _enough time_. Time to allow the High King to reorganize his forces and return south and lift the siege. A week?" she asked Oreius. The Centaur seemed to consider she was being optimistic at best.

"At the very least, your majesty," he said grimly. She nodded – a minimum timeframe was established.

"Even so, your majesty," Tumnus continued, "if we were to send a column of swift riders from the Cair – accompanied by wagons and carts – it may be possible for the people to gather more food. And, indeed, travel more swiftly to the city – especially the slow and infirm." Susan – for the first time that day – smiled.

"Arrange for carts and horses," she said briskly. She looked around the room, seeing that her orders were accepted. "Does everyone understand what they have to do?" There was a moment of consideration, and then nods as unspoken military professionalism determined the tasks and divided them between those present. Susan choked back a lump in her throat as she saw Edmund and Peter's training displayed even in their absence. "I will ride with the column to the marshaling point – Oreius, I want twenty of your elite Centaurs assembled in the courtyard within the hour."

It was only utter shock and horror that prevented the room from bursting into exclamations of protest. As it was, a voice came from the doorway as the brindled head of Altaica appeared.

"Your majesty, _no!_" he exclaimed, "You can't be serious! Leave war to these _brutes_ and come to Archenland with me." Susan half looked over her shoulder as she turned to face the tiger.

"You are fleeing to Archenland?" she asked crisply. The tiger – if it were possible – looked embarrassed.

"Well, your majesty," he squirmed, "my place is with my people – as is yours!"

In a flash, Susan saw it plainly – she could ride swiftly with an honor guard of her cats like an arrow from the bow south to Anvard and ride out the war there. If it were done with sufficient speed and stealth, no-one – least of all the forces ranged against them – would know she was not at the Cair. If the city – with all its beautiful tapestries and treasures and her beloved bathroom – were defended with sufficient troops, it could hold until the arrival of the High King. He could drive the enemies into the sea, and Susan could return from Archenland beautiful and serene and untouched by war.

She shook her head – that was a coward's way out. Perhaps no-one would think worse of her if she did it, perhaps it was what they wanted or expected her to do. She wanted to do it herself – she did not want war to come to her home.

But come it had – no matter what she said or did, it was here. And the tiger was right – her place was with her people.

Rage transfigured her beautiful face for a splintered second – suddenly, the cowardice of her Marshal was plain. "There is," she said silverly, "a great demand for tiger bones for medicine in Calormen." She paused briefly. "Go! Send messages to the South and flee to Archenland. I will remain in Narnia."

"But, your majesty! Susan!" The Queen's face twisted.

"Carry out my orders, Marshal, or I'll find someone who will!" she thundered. The gigantic tiger fairly scurried out of the room, his tail fluffed up and the hair on his back standing on end. She sighed and composed herself. Into the resulting silence, Oreius spoke.

"If that is your will, your majesty, then so be it," he said heavily. "I will ride with you." She shook her head.

"Your place is here, General – I need you to organize the defense of the Cair." Oreius opened his mouth to speak.

"Your majesty . . . !"

"Don't 'your majesty' me, General!" Susan snapped in a voice she hardly knew, "I might not be my brother, but I am still the Monarch-in-Residence. You know as well as I that I will be Queen of nowhere, nothing and no-one in a week unless we act now. My decision is made – bring me my bow and war armor" She plucked the ivory pin from the map and replaced it a few hours to the north, "I ride this afternoon."


	34. The Servant Queen

**Chapter Thirty-Four : The Servant-Queen**

Of course, everyone in the castle knew better than to _fetch_ Susan's bow – in exactly the same way as no-one would dare draw Rhindon or touch the Fire-flower Cordial. The Queen walked purposefully towards her chambers, accompanied by her lady-in-waiting, and re-emerged half an hour later dressed only in black arming doublet and breeches. Her horn and quiver of arrows were hanging from her broad shoulders and her bow was in her right hand. In her left, she held letters sealed with her signet ring. She met the Cair's armorers in the courtyard, their thick Dwarfish hands busy with gleaming gold and shining jewels.

This was Queen Susan's war armor – fluted and plaited and laminated and knitted Narnian steel plated and inlaid with Archenlandish gold and Calormen jewels she had only worn once before; during the final fitting. Since then, it had languished in the armory of the Cair, lonely and touched only once a week as it was dusted on its armor-tree In style it was similar to the decorative armor she had been wearing an hour previously – armor designed for a female archer – but heavier by far than that. Silk gave way to padded leather, beaten gold foil to eighth-inch plate, rings of gilded wire to circles of golden steel requiring the strength of plier-armed Dwarfs to close.

But yet, Susan mused as she stood and let the Dwarfs strap the armor onto her, feeling the weight settle around her like the angry ocean – powerful and protective – it was as beautiful as anything she had ever seen. Each of the hundreds of rivets that held the lames together was capped with a golden lion's head finished with a mane of Western Wild amber and eyes made of Telmarine topaz. Chased down the vambraces, cuirass, tassets, greaves and pauldrons were Narnian scenes; hunting, riding, courtly dances – even her family's victories – rendered in marquetry with precious- and semi-precious stones. Each strap was leather embroidered with golden thread and every buckle was wrought of diamond-encrusted silver.

As her lady-in-waiting – with twiggy fingers that moved faster than sight – pulled back and braided her hair, plaiting silken ribbons and hundreds of beads made from carved emeralds and rubies and sapphires into the lustrous black tresses, Susan beckoned the three messengers towards her. Drax bowed before her; he was charged with returning to the Lantern Waste and Susan knew the lupine Captain was capable beyond the dreams of most soldiers. Susan noticed – not for the first time – the brand on his shoulder; the snow-flake of Jadis now partially-obscured by self-inflicted claw marks. He was one of Edmund's personally chosen elite and a former member of the Witch's army – if anyone could get through the ever-closing cordon of evil, it was him. She offered him Lucy's letter – and then brushed away the Dwarfs and Dryad attending her and knelt and tied it around his neck. "Go with Aslan," she whispered, kissing his muzzle. He bowed again and sped away faster than a greyhound, moving silently through the snow-clad courtyard.

The letter for the High King went with Reynard – who could slink through the approaching armies – and the one for King Lune was tied to the ankle of Sallowpad the Raven. How she wished she had some way of contacting Edmund!

She resolutely thrust such hopes aside – if pigs had wings they'd be eagles. She cast her gaze around the courtyard; Oreius' elite were there, armed and armored for war – their massive bodies clad in thick leather and intricately wrought steel, twinned blades strapped to their flanks and enormous greatswords ported across their backs. All of them looked identical – for their armor was so heavy it covered their faces and all-but hid the color of their hindquarters – but she immediately recognized General Oreius.

She had half–suspected he would have tried to come – either counting himself as one of the score of elite Centaurs, or simply by insisting. But he was out of armor, naked but for the sash of a Knight of the Table across his brawny chest. In his massive hands he held a ruby and jet hilted blade in a golden scabbard and matching swordbelt. Susan waved away the armorers and her Dryad, swinging the single long plait of her hair over her shoulder to rest against her plastron. Jewels chinked against the chased metal as she walked towards Oreius. "General," she murmured, belting the quiver of arrows and bow across her back and flinging her hair back over her shoulder again.

He clattered over to her, a tall black stallion gleaming with barding in his wake, as she hung the horn by her side. "Your majesty," he said carefully, bowing before her and presenting her blade to her, "Pray grant me the boon that you will allow Rocinante to bear you – he is war-trained and the very best steed I have at the Cair." As Susan buckled the belt around her narrow waist and rolled her powerful shoulders to settle the pauldrons more comfortably, she arched a single beautiful eyebrow.

There was nothing _wrong_ with General Oreius' suggestion – she would need to ride, and she could not ride a Centaur. This was war – the weight of the armor around her body and limitations it imposed on her possible movements, reducing them to what she _needed_ to be able to do, made that clear – and so to ride a Talking Horse (there was no mistaking the intelligence in Rocinante's eyes for anything else) was at the very-least permissible and very probably advisable.

Yet, antennae sensitized by long months in soft velvet and cushioned silk sensed something else in the Centaur's desire. _Drat it all,_ she mused, _I'm getting paranoid._

_And yet . . ._ she considered, _Varden's wolves knew where Edmund was before he let them know, Peter and Lucy are pinned down and I am attacked while Edmund is away; there are spies in Narnia, there are those whom I cannot trust._ A shiver that was not due to the cold stole across her shoulders. She shook her concerns off like a cloak and nodded at Orieus, placing one foot in the stirrup and making ready to mount the horse. "Rocinante," she said politely.

The stallion – a massive creature with hair as dark as Susan's and eyes the color of night – was about to whinny a reply when there was a clatter of hooves from behind them. Susan turned, to see a tall, elegant palomino mare pushing her knock-kneed offspring back into the stable with her long muzzle. The foal couldn't have been more than a few months old at the most – perhaps still drinking her mother's milk. "No, Hwin," the mare said lovingly, pushing the filly more firmly back into the stable.

"Mama?" asked the filly, as another of the Cair's horses came forward and ushered the child backwards. The mare straightened and turned to face her Queen.

"Your majesty, let me bear you," she asked. Susan smiled at the temerity, but Oreius and Rocinante did not. The stallion snorted.

"Lady," his voice was nasal and somehow scornful – Susan was unsure whether that was down to his attitude or his race, "why should she ride you? I am swifter and stronger – war is no place for a filly."

Susan froze in the act of swinging her leg over the stallion's broad back, and stepped out of the stirrup. She faced the mare. "Who are you?" she asked. The mare tossed her blonde, white maned head.

"My name is Niamh, your majesty." Her voice was gentle and cultured, she looked intimidated by the towering stallion nearby. "My husband is King Edmund's battle stallion – he is far away in the Lantern Waste, bearing Queen Lucy." Neither Susan nor her sister had dedicated war horses – for battles _were_ ugly when women fought. Even so, needs must . . .

"Just because your husband is a war stallion, Niamh," snorted Rocinante, "that does not mean you should be fighting. Leave this to the professionals." The mare lowered her head despite herself and took a half-step backwards. And then she tossed her head and fixed the stallion and Oreius with a piercing glare.

"I will bear her where _she_ wishes," she said, the words coming out in a rush, "be it into danger or away from it. I know where my loyalty lies." The stallion bristled, angry his honor had been impugned. But it was clear what the General's plan had been. Susan turned to face Niamh and lay a long hand on her neck.

"Thank you," she whispered. She faced one of the ostlers – a young Faun tongue-tied and in awe of her beauty. "Have Niamh saddled and armored – I will ride her." Oreius' face twisted.

"Your majesty! My duty to you is . . ." Susan span and faced him.

"Your duty, General?" she snapped, "Your duty is to do what I damn well tell you. Do your duty and let me do mine – I am going to bring my people home."

oOo

Susan – burning like a column of alchemical fire rising from the brilliant-white ash of the snow that covered the village square – watched calmly as her Centaurs assisted the village in loading the Winter stores of food onto the carts.

The afternoon sun blazed and bounced from the crisp white ice that clad the ground, sparkling and shattering from polished golden armor and faceted jewels. For five yards around her, nothing walked or disturbed the smooth whiteness of the snow – save the myriad reflections of golden and multicolored light that her armor scattered. Sunlight was stained and then broken into accented rainbows by the prisms of jewels, arching golden curves were painted on the snow by her armor As she moved, the rainbows rippled like stained glass under a furnace heat.

The Queen of Narnia was still and silent, focusing on the glittering cloak she scattered to keep her hands and shoulders from trembling.

The column – of a dozen or so large carts and wagons, pulled by strong draft horses (not, of course, Talking Horses – who were used exclusively for war), flanked by the score of Centaurs and lead by Niamh and Susan – had moved swiftly along good roads the three and a half leagues to the village. Messengers and scouts – swift-running Talking Dogs, a couple of foxes and a flight of birds – had loped and scurried and flown ahead of them, disseminating Susan's message like a river reversing its course; _run before the foe. Her Majesty will protect you. Fly to the safety of her shield. Bring what you can, leave what you can afford. _

And now Susan felt the grim weight of responsibility settle around her. It was only the sensation of the Lion's paws under her shoulders that stopped them bowing under the strain.

Her orders and plan had been simple; half the carts would be loaded with as much of the Winter stores – cured sides of bacon, onions, apples, barrels of wine and beer, salted beef, tubs of butter, bunches of carrots and sacks of oats, wheat and flour – from this village as possible. The village had enough supplies to support it for the rest of the Winter and into the Spring; such resources would make the inevitable siege of the Cair easier to withstand. And then the villagers and the loaded carts would set out towards the Cair, guarded by ten of the Centaurs, traveling through the night to arrive in the very early morning. Time was the important factor here.

Over the night, the rest of the people of the Eastern March would travel here and – by noon the next day, if all went according to plan – they would all have gathered in the village. An hour to take stock, a brief meal and a rest, and by mid-afternoon they would all be marching back towards the Cair. It would be evening by the time they arrived – and the civilians would be dog-tired. _Except,_ mused Susan, a smile twisting her lips despite herself, _for the dogs._

Niamh trotted closer, breaking the circle of virgin snow around the Queen and her reverie. "Your majesty," she neighed quietly, "the Centaurs report that the wagons are loaded and ready to leave. The Captain requests – again – that you ride with them." Susan swung her head towards her, the braided jewels in her hair clinking against her quiver.

For second, she was silent. Despite the conviction nestled in her breast, despite the promises she had made to herself and Aslan, despite what she knew to be her duty, it was terribly tempting to simply mount Niamh and get out of here. She had given her orders, it was all going according to plan. What difference could she make here? The Centaurs could get her people home – she only risked herself out here. She was more important than the whole of the Eastern March – she _knew_ that.

A Faun-child – scarcely a toddler, really – ran through the snow, thinking his mother had abandoned him. He tripped on a hidden rock or root and fell to a stumbling, screaming tangle at Susan's booted feet. The Queen shook herself awake and bent and picked the child up, gathering him into her strong arms. "Sssh," she soothed, brushing the curls back from his just-budding horns and feeling his hooves beat a drumroll of frustration against her armor, "sssh. It'll be alright – nothing will hurt you. I promise." She walked forward, jiggling the boy in her arms, brushed past Niamh and approached the rearmost of the wagons, on which a Faun-lady was waiting nervously, her hands outstretched. Around her, children and a few arthritic villagers sat alongside barrels and boxes of food; all-in-all, a mournful group of refugees.

Susan put the Faun-child into the arms of his mother and bowed her head into the face of her gushing thanks. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence – Susan feeling it was because she was sending these people away; that, despite everything she and her brothers and Lucy had promised, these people weren't safe here and their promises were hollow.

And then the child struck his little dimpled fist in the air and squeaked, "Hail Queen Susan!"

All down the length of the column – from those on the wagons too-young to remember the Witch or too-old to forget, from those marching alongside with weapons shouldered awkwardly and amateurishly, from the Centaurs themselves – the cry went up. "Hail Queen Susan! Hail Narnia!"

Susan closed her eyes and blinked back tears, turning from them to face the Captain. "Go," she whispered. "Go before I change my mind."

oOo

There were no chapels or churches in Narnia – the nearest the Pevenises got to that were the ever-present lion-motifs on tapestries and walls. Unbeknownst to them, of course, there was more than one painted icon of themselves in the possession of their followers; images of Susan executed in sensuous oils in lockets, Peter carved from painted oak on door lintels, Lucy daubed in endearing watercolors next to children's beds and Edmund stamped in coin-bronze worn around the necks of soldiers.

The Royal Swords, of course – from Rhindon down to Lucy's dagger – were capped with a lion's head pommel. And it was Edmund and Peter – the elder brother doing it because it gave him the air of a crusader and the younger because he really understood what was happening – who had begun the pre-battle devotions of kneeling before the reversed blade, their forearms resting on the quillons and hands grasped around the hilt.

And so, midnight found Susan kneeling before her reversed blade underneath a naked tree with the three-quarter moon shining through bony branches onto her. Her troops had made a bed for her in one of the houses – the best they could manage, they explained apologetically. It had taken Niamh some time to explain to them that her Majesty did not remain awake because she thought the bed too lowly for her – for, truth be told, Susan was so tired she would have slept in a stable – but simply because she did not wish to sleep.

This was not, reflected Susan as she gripped the hilt of her sword so hard she could hear her bones creak, entirely true.

She wanted to sleep – she wanted to be at the Cair, or in Archenland, preferably. She wanted to be far from danger and war. She did not, in truth, want to be the beautiful Queen Susan. She wanted to be plain, simple, Susan Pevensie again. She wanted the war in Narnia to be won and the war in Europe to be over and her to be in _either_ of those places. She did not want to be here in heavy armor that ached her shoulders and with a horrible blade in her fist and a bow that could put arrows through six inches of oak on her shoulder.

But here she was. And wishing it away would do no good.

"Sweet Aslan," she whispered, crystal tears beading in her eyes and sparkling like diamonds in the light of the moon, "please don't let me fail. Don't let me let these people down. They look to me – only you know why. I'm not brave, and I'm not strong, and I know I'm just a pretty face. I don't want to be a Queen – but you made me one, and if that is your will I will bear it." She closed her eyes and sniffed back tears. "But it is _very_ hard." Above her, the moonlight struck her golden armor and she blazed like the sun. For a second, she was the brightest spot in the dark village.

A crunch of snow in front of her. A warm, delicious smell wafted over her. Scarcely daring to believe it, she raised her tear-streaked face and drowned herself in the great golden eyes of the Lion.

"Hail Queen Susan the Gentle," rumbled Aslan. She thought about trying to rise to her feet, but her limbs simply wouldn't obey her. For a second, she remained kneeling as upright as a tower at the Cair – her lips trembling and eyes shining, sword held unwavering in her hands like an icon of the Saints – and then she dropped it and flung herself forward, burying her face in his mane and the tears coming in great heaving sobs.

"They're going to die!" she wept, "War's come to Narnia and I can't defend them, Aslan! I _can't!_ You _know_ that – I'm not Peter, I'm not Edmund – I'm not even Lucy!" Her chest heaved, pushing the hot terror out of her and sucking in great breaths of his warm calm. "They trusted in us and we let them down!" She felt Aslan's great velveted paw on her back, wrapping her in iron-strong silk. Slowly, her breath evened and stabilized, the tremors leaving her. She pulled back from him, embarrassed perhaps by her show of weakness. "I can't do this," she said seriously.

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?" asked Aslan with a low growl that was almost a purr. Susan's face cycled through indignation and annoyance, and then she bowed her head to him.

"You wouldn't ask me if I couldn't, would you?" she said tearfully. Aslan's reply shocked her.

"I wouldn't ask you if I didn't think you could say 'Yes'," he said softly, one of his huge paws lifting her chin inexorably so she looked into his eyes. And then, suddenly, with a terrible clarity that marked her adulthood more keenly than petty physiological changes, she realized what he meant.

She might very-well die here today. She might very-well be slaughtered on the field of battle, or perhaps survive to be slain or starved in the siege. There were a thousand chances every day – she might misjudge the wave by a split-second and be dashed against the cliff of the Cair. She could fall from her horse and have her pelvis crushed. An ill-judged arrow on a hunting trip would end her life as surely as anything.

And Aslan would not protect her from those – not necessarily. If Aslan would protect her when she was about his business, why did she wear armor? Why did Peter come back from the wars with so many scars? Why was Lucy given that cordial?

Edmund had been nearly slain shattering the Witch's wand – the very knife that had killed Aslan had carved into his heart too. Surely, Edmund had been about Aslan's business then? Surely, he had been doing _exactly_ what the Lion wanted?

The Lion would not stop her dying – but, as long as she was following his wishes, he would make sure it all worked out in the end. The world did not revolve around her – it was a sobering realization for such a young woman. The world revolved around the desires and wishes of Aslan, around his Will and his intellect.

She might very-well die today – but, so long as she died doing what he would have her do, it would all be alright. The greater and the brighter things would endure. She would have played her part in the universe and fulfilled her vocation.

A humbling sense of her own smallness descended on Susan. She felt the armor around her – precious beyond imagining, worth an Emperor's ransom in weight alone – as a fraction of the gold and jewels that rested in the world's crust; a grain beside a mountain. She saw herself not as the great Queen of Narnia, but just the latest in a long line of monarchs that stretched before her and after her further than she could see. She saw herself as simply a human – one of the millions who had come before her, and with no greater role than theirs. _More glamorous, perhaps,_ she smiled, _but no more important._

"Behold the handmaid of the Lion," she said again, bending and kissing his paws, "Let it be done _to me_ according to your wishes."

Aslan bent his head and licked her forehead, his strength flowing into her tired limbs and clarity and determination filling her frame. She stood – tall, imperious, the Queen of Narnia and Empress of the Lone Islands – and sheathed her sword with a fluid grace even Peter would have found impressive.

"Aslan," she asked falteringly, "Was I right to come out here? Was I right to do this myself?" The Lion chuckled.

"Child, you know that no-one is ever told what _would_ have happened." Susan gave a weak, half-crying laugh and sniffled back the last of her tears.

"I had decided to try, anyway," she explained, more to herself than him. "I wouldn't have fled."

"I know." Aslan smiled at her, his eyes gleaming and – dare she imagine it? – slightly proud. "You are a good woman, Susan. Do not listen to your fears."

She might have answered him, but a Centaur hunting-horn cut the crisp night air, spiraling upwards in great swooping notes. She span to see Rufus the Lynx dashing into the village, his tail bushy and fluffed and his eyes wide with terror and exertion. He delivered a report in a few gasping sentences to the Captain of the Centaurs.

"Your majesty!" the Centaur bellowed, "A force of our enemies is sighted to the north, harrying refugees. Your orders?"

Susan was about to run for Niamh – already cantering out of the stable – and swing herself into the saddle, but then she checked herself and turned to face Aslan. It didn't even cross her mind to ask him for help – he'd already given it in making her and those under her everything they were. "I have to go," she said shortly, "Narnia calls."

Aslan simply wasn't there any more. Susan did not let this faze her, and drew her sword, saluted the place where he had stood and then sprinted for her horse, swinging herself onto her back with fluid grace. Niamh reared back as Susan brandished her golden blade.

"To arms! Narnia! We take the battle to them!" she screamed. And then the horse's hooves touched the snow and Queen Susan of Narnia charged north like an arrow from the bow, a guard of Centaurs spreading behind her like wings.


	35. The Governor of the Lone Islands

**Chapter Thirty-Five : The Governor of the Lone Islands**

It wasn't the sudden fall that made Elizabeth's heart leap to her mouth – she had resigned herself to death – but rather the jerk as her body stopped falling, her shoulder wrenching with her full weight, and that of her armor, trying to pull it out of its socket.

Whatever had grabbed her wrist began to slip, ice- and blood-smirched silver sliding out of the grip, and her heart leaped again. The sudden arrest had woken in her the desire to live; now she had seen the light spilling from the half-closed door she was in no hurry to see if the darkness was quite as comforting as she had assumed. But it seemed as if she would have to – her vambrace was smooth as oil and about as slippery. Metal grated on swarfing metal as she slipped.

A horrible, terrible, impossible metallic creaking and groaning as the tempered silver-plated steel of her vambrace deformed, bending inwards slightly under an improbable caress, forming a grip perfectly tailored to the hand that held her forearm. She looked up.

Michael's face – impassive, blandly handsome and without a hint of effort showing – gazed down at her along the line of beaten gunmetal enclosing his arm. He held her there, hanging in the skirl of the wind and the swirling snow above the raging sea, until she swept her left hand up and grasped his wrist in her own fingers. And then he lifted her effortlessly up and over the parapet, placing her on the wall of Narrowhaven and letting go of her wrist. She flexed her bruised arm and rotated the shoulder to get the blood flowing.

"You saved me . . ." she began, "I thought I was going to . . ." She shook her head and stooped to pick up her blade. "Thank you," she said simply. Michael transferred his magnificent sword from his left hand to his right and gazed down at her.

"It is not your time," he said quietly, "There's a time to die, a time for killing, a time for healing, a time for war and a time for peace." Elizabeth looked out over the courtyard below where the battle still raged. The noise and unmistakable reek of a battle crashed back into her awareness like a rape. Her eye fell on Hedera, standing atop the tumbled gray masonry of the eastern wall, lashing outwards with long vines and tendrils, tearing down her foes.

"A time to cast away stones?" she quipped. Michael did not smile.

"Aye, and a time to gather stones together." He turned to face the battle, swinging his sword above his head in two hands and roaring, "_Aslan!_" as he leaped from the battlements, falling like lightning into the melee below. His first blow shattered the skull of a Minotaur even as his weight snapped the spine of an Ogre. She lost him after that within the flashing steel of his swordwork. She turned and ran along the parapet, bounding down the stairs three at a time and into the fight.

But it was all over – those who were their enemies were either dead or surrendered or fled. In truth, not many remained breathing within the courtyard; no quarter had been asked or given for the monsters, and the rage of the Islanders themselves had accounted for many of the human soldiers – it was only thanks to Elizabeth's bellowed orders any of them lived at all. Many of the Governor's men had fled, and the courtyard was full of cheering humanity, thronging side-by-side with the remnants of Edmund's grand crusade. She was no expert, but she doubted if there were two hundreds of the five that had set out with him – the initial ambush had broken their army and slow attrition had accounted for the rest.

Elizabeth was hemmed in on all sides by a deliriously happy throng – men who had not known freedom for a century drunk on it, Narnians realizing their long crusade was over, that victory was theirs. Men grabbed her hands and wrung them earnestly, Fauns danced around with her, beaming smiles of joy on their faces. The noise was deafening – songs and cheers and brays and howls and hootings, pipes and lyres and harps and drums. A riot of color was spreading over the courtyard – someone had found a storeroom and Winter apples, wrinkled but sound and sweet, and hams and wine were being passed around. A flagon was thrust into Elizabeth's hand and she drained it in a single gulp.

Swept up in the victory celebrations – victory itself was so sudden and immediate it had not even had time to seem anti-climatic – she didn't feel her wounds or exhaustion. She cavorted with a sprightly Dryad, laughing with Dwarfs and humans and Fauns and animals as they watched. Words were said and songs sung, but nothing could be heard over the thunderous roar of joy ringing through the courtyard.

Gradually, the noise resolved itself into a bass thumping beneath the tumult, and then that thumping resolved itself into a chant which eclipsed all other noise. Except for the word being chanted over and over again, there was silence in the courtyard. But that word was loud enough to deafen, ringing off the walls like a two-syllable heartbeat; systolic, diastolic, systolic, diastolic, systolic, diastolic.

_ Ed-mund! Ed-mund! Ed-mund!_

A thousand throats. A thousand voices. A thousand fists punching the air. On the raised dais at the end of the courtyard, Edmund appeared, walking up the stairs wearily, flanked by his lupine elite. Somewhere, he had found a trough or pitcher of water and had sluiced and scrubbed the worst of the blood and dirt off himself. But his skin was still broken and bruised, gray with exhaustion and effort, and his hair was matted to his scalp.

As Elizabeth pushed through the crowd, the waves of sound battering her like blows, a rush of compassion took her. He was slender and slim – she had always known that – but to see it now, seeing the sinewy leanness of his naked torso, a body that had grown to wield swords and wear armor too-soon, too quickly, was heart-rending. There were scars on his flesh – new ones still leaking blood, and older ones standing out livid white on his gray skin.

She wanted – and it was this pushing her body forward, rather than anything sensible or logical – to run over to him and mother him and cradle him in her arms and tell her baby nothing else would ever hurt him again. It was, for a second, simply overwhelming. She realized the loss she had inflicted on herself putting her career before motherhood. _Would Aslan have ever had to drag me here if I'd had a child of my own to keep me on the straight and narrow?_ she wondered.

Edmund – standing beside Rapine and the wolves – was a gaunt figure; gray-eyed and hollow-cheeked, blood and bruises marking his flesh. He looked for all the world like one of them; a wolf given human form, an intelligent pack animal capable of hunting alone. That effect was not dimmed as he flung back his head and gave vent to an inarticulate howl of victory that the wolves joined with.

"In the name of Aslan, I declare victory!" he roared, "I, Edmund, Emperor of the Lone Islands by gift of Aslan, by prescription, by election _and by conquest!_"

Elizabeth was at the front of the crowd by now, and a scramble up the shattered stone of the balustrade brought her to stand on the dais. Rapine padded to her side and ran his head along her hand. As she tangled her bruised and tired fingers in his warm, salt-slick fur, Edmund turned his battered face to her.

Any idea she might have had about cradling him in her arms evaporated as she saw him; he was standing ten feet tall though he was scarcely taller than she was. He wasn't slender and slight, he was lean and tempered like a blade. Those weren't wounds, they were badges of courage.

Her legs were weak and she almost wanted to fall to her knees. Were her wounds catching up with her, or was it something else? The diadem on her brow had somehow slipped, falling sideways like the crown of the Virgin on all the statues. She reached up and carefully removed it with her free hand. "It doesn't fit." She gave a watery smile and placed it gently on his head.

Edmund smiled softly and took the hand that lingered around his wounded brow and held it in his. "You came," he said quietly, "you did it." She shrugged.

"More by chance than by design," she grinned weakly, "And Colonel Rapine must take much of the credit." She paused as the wolf ruffled his fur in her fingers, "You'd have won without me." Edmund shook his head.

"You turned the people to my side and fought like the Lion himself – this is your victory as much as it is mine. I will not easily forget this." He placed his hands on her shoulders and held her at arms' length, studying her face. "I think it is time I acknowledged your aid." He took up his sword and lead her towards the rear of the dais, seating himself in the Governor's chair and laying the naked blade across his knees. "Kneel before me, Lady Elizabeth," he said quietly, but in a voice that carried.

Unsure of what was happening, Elizabeth sank to her knees, looking trustingly up into Edmund's hard gray eyes. He took her hands between his. "My lady," he spoke, his voice echoing effortlessly from the walls of the courtyard onto the now-silent crowd below, "before you proceed to the office of Governor of the Lone Islands, declare before the people your intention to undertake the office."

Elizabeth's eyebrows went scrambling up in surprise. "But . . . I can't . . ." she stammered. She looked up desperately at the King and Michael standing by his side. "There are better people than I for it . . . I won't be here for ever . . ." _Will I?_ her mind wondered, a surprisingly large part of her hoping she would.

"Neither will any of you," said Michael softly, perhaps referring to the history that she and he knew would unfold, or perhaps simply to their inevitable deaths.

A thousand details whirled through Elizabeth's mind – none of this was real, she didn't belong here, she wasn't _of _Narnia. She wasn't Governor material, she was no politician, she was no leader.

_Can you be the first in the charge and the last in the retreat?_ asked a golden voice in her heart, _Can you judge fairly and justly? Can you be merciful? Can you speak peace to the captive and freedom to the downtrodden? Can you do what my King asks of you?_

And that, she realized, was it. Yes, she might not be the best candidate. Yes, she might not actually want to do this. Yes, she might very well leave this magical world with the same abruptness she had arrived. But that changed nothing – she was being called to do this. And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, she could do exactly what was required provided she listened to the breath of Aslan.

Calm surety descended on her like a mantle as she nodded and bowed her head. Edmund continued;

"Are you resolved, with the help of Aslan, to discharge without fail the office of Governor of the Lone Islands as a conscientious fellow worker with the Monarchs of Narnia?"

Elizabeth swallowed. "I am," she said quietly, and then repeated herself so that the crowd could hear. "I am."

"Are you resolved to rule the Islands faithfully in accordance with the old customs, rights, usages and laws of Narnia?"

_If someone will tell me what they are_. "I am."

"Are you resolved to exercise your sovereign power worthily and wisely, enacting my laws and decrees?"

Elizabeth's voice was far more assured now, having moved beyond unreality to the certainly of vocation. "I am"

"Are you resolved to devote your life, and death if needs must, to Aslan for the rule of his people, and to unite yourself more closely every day to him, who offered himself as a sacrifice for us all?"

Elizabeth swallowed, the enormity of what she was being asked to undertake striking her. It was one thing to resign yourself to death when hanging from a wall two-hundred feet above the churning sea, it was entirely another to do so sitting safe inside victory. "I am," she said eventually, adding as a coda that she hoped the Lion could hear, "with the help of Aslan."

Edmund smiled at her words. "Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?"

Without a heartbeat's hesitation, she nodded firmly. "I do." Edmund released her hands – smears of crimson blood clung to them like an anointing.

"May Aslan who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment," he said softly, laying his hands on her bowed head. In silence, she felt his hands withdraw and then raise her to her feet as he stood. Edmund flicked his eyes at Magdala and Silvius who were standing nearby, having come onto the dais with Michael. Wordlessly, the woman draped a robe over her shoulders and the shepherd fastened its chain around her neck. The robe was heavy crimson velvet, embroidered with the device of the lion in gold thread – rich and elaborate but dusty and smelling of mothballs as if it had been in hidden in a trunk for many years. Edmund spun her to face the silent crowd.

"I, Edmund, by gift of Aslan King of Narnia and Emperor of the Lone Islands, name Elizabeth Agnoli and her heirs Governor of the Lone Islands as long as the rule of my siblings and our successors shall last," he cried, his voice ringing effortlessly over the heads of the crowd.

_What do I do now?_ she wondered, looking out at her newly-found subjects. She didn't even know where her authority ended – she was the Kings and Queens' Governor; did he outrank her on her own Islands? Were they even _her_ Islands? She could feel uncertainly washing from them in waves – they were unsure of her. _Of course,_ she realized_, these people have been held in oppression for one hundred years by a man appointed by Narnia. All these people know of leadership is terror and slavery._

Elizabeth had always been a good leader – as cheer captain at Notre Dame she had led her team to two national championships and now, as vice president in a City firm, she was an expert. She understood the psychology of leadership implicitly and instinctively; lead by example, friendly not friends, carrot and stick. She cleared her throat and gauged the mood of the crowd.

"As my first act as Royal Governor of the Lone Islands, I declare today Liberation Day, a national holiday we shall celebrate as long as the thrones of Cair Paravel endure!" she cried. "All those imprisoned by the former Governor I hereby set free and give pardon without condition or restriction. I declare properties seized unjustly by the former Governor and contrary to the legitimate taxation of the Narnian Crown shall be returned to their owners or their heirs or made common for the good of the people. All decrees passed by the former Governor are hereby nullified and the code of laws returned to what it was before the rise of the Witch." She paused, had she forgotten anything she might herself like? Oh, yes. "And I order that the cellars of the castle be opened and such a feast as skill can contrive in the short time remaining before the evening is arranged. Tonight, we celebrate Liberation Day!"

Wild, disbelieving adulation was the crowd's reaction to her speech. "Three cheers for Governor Elizabeth! Hip-hip, hurrah! Hip-hip, hurrah! Hip-hip, hurrah!" She sighed with relief as the people danced and sang and cheered. Edmund leaned close to her ear.

"Good speech," he whispered, "I hereby forgive you of your debt of the previous century of tribute." Her head whipped to face him, shocked and worried, and then saw he was smiling. She laughed, exhaustion settling on her like a cloak. Edmund saw it, and felt a similar mantle descend on his shoulders. All around them, the Narnians were the very picture of weariness. "I must get some rest, Governor," he said, almost apologetically. She nodded.

"I'll handle here, your majesty," she smiled at him, "You have accomplished things today Narnia will talk about for a thousand years." There was nothing more to be said between them – theirs was a relationship forged not in the throes of childbirth or passion, or in the fires of combat or in argument – it was forged, quite simply, in the drawing back from the same place by the same hand. Co-workers of the Truth, servants of Aslan.

Edmund bowed before her and limped away, supported by one of the Fauns. Michael turned to Tullibardine, Brocklewine and the other Captains. "Fall out – the armies have leave until noon tomorrow," he ordered crisply. Each creature – Dryad, beast, Dwarf or Faun – saluted the salute particular to its race and broke ranks with an individuality so precise it could only be military. Michael faced Elizabeth, "Permission to fall-out, Governor?" he asked with a shockingly formal salute. She nodded, smiling.

"Granted, Warlord." She snapped her heels together and touched her brow with her fingertips. He gave a curt nod and spun on his heels, being lost in the crowd in seconds. "Michael, wait . . ." she half-called after him.

He was gone. Her shoulders slumped and she sat wearily down on the Governor's chair, unclipping the chain from around her neck and letting the cloak slip from her shoulders. Exhaustion closed her eyes and lay her head back – she knew as well as any that there would be no easy victory here. She had seen the forces that had escaped – and the Governor himself, damn his eyes. _Or, rather,_ she reflected allowing a light smile to play on her lips, _eye._ Still, half-blind or not, he would retreat to one of the fortresses under his command and regroup.

It looked as if her first action as Governor would be to put down an insurrection. But that was for tomorrow. This evening, she would celebrate and this afternoon she would sleep. Despite the cheering noise and music from the courtyard – and the glugging of wine and crunching of bread – she drifted into slumber.

A weight on her lap woke her. She snapped her eyes open to see Rapine's long-jawed head resting on her knee. "Governor," he growled with something close to a smile. She beamed and ruffled the fur of his neck.

"Colonel," she smiled. "If I thought you would accept, I would offer you the position of Marshal of the Islands." Rapine sat back on his haunches and scratched behind his ear with his hind leg.

"What makes you think I would refuse, Governor?" She opened her mouth to answer him, but he spoke over her. "I would follow you to the death – you don't just wear my old mistress' armor, you remind me of her in more ways than one."

"Yes," came a venomous voice that rustled like leathery leaves, "betrayal of Narnia in service to Aslan is the hallmark of those who wear that armor." Elizabeth spun around and was on her feet before she realized she had moved. Rapine was by her side, lips drawing back waveform from blood-black gums. Hedera laughed as Elizabeth hated herself for her movement.

"Care to explain yourself, Spymistress?" hissed Elizabeth, realizing there was one more thing she had to do before she could sleep – deal with the Dryad, "By what right do you accuse me of treachery?" Hedera smiled winningly, her crimson eyes narrowing.

"_Governor,_" she hissed, "do you deny that you had to lie to achieve what you achieved today? Do you deny that Queen Swanwhite betrayed Narnians to their deaths?" Rapine growled before Elizabeth could answer.

"Lady Elizabeth acted as King Edmund ordered her," he snarled, "and Queen Swanwhite resisted the Witch with her own life and the lives of her people. It was given to her to do so – you should not question the actions of the children of Adam, Hedera."

The Dryad snorted, tossing her leafy hair. "You still think like a puppy, Rapine – clinging to the humans for your daily bowl of biscuits and meat. When's this one going to take you for a walk?" Rapine's snout rippled like the encroaching tide. "Oh, don't snarl at me, Colonel – you've seen the evidence with your own eyes, you're just too blind to make sense of it. The brood of Eve is – as a rule – treacherous, too-willing to be corrupted by the power they have taken. Since Adam himself they have stretched out their hand where they should not and taken things they have no right to – they are a fallen and corrupted people." Elizabeth hung her head, realizing the inherent truth in those words. Why else, for God's sake, did He have to die for them? Rapine growled a terse response.

"As are we all." Hedera snorted.

"Are we? Who brought the Witch to Narnia? The humans!" she snarled, "Right at the dawn of this perfect world, the humans betrayed it. Look around you – look at your own soldiers who will never return home because of the evil of the humans! Look around you and see those loyal to Aslan dead because the Sons of Adam were corrupted by the authority they have stolen! _Look at these Islands!_" Rapine put his head on one side, unfazed by Hedera's impassioned – yet calculated – rhetoric.

"Stolen, Hedera?" he asked, seemingly puzzled, "No. Not stolen – legitimately used and enacted. Humans were given that office by Aslan – from King Frank and Queen Helen through the Kings of Archenland and Narnia, King Gale and Queen Swanwhite, humans have been given this land to rule. No matter how many times that is abused, it cannot be taken away. Every human – Prince or beggar – bows his head and lifts his heart because of what he is and what his line has done! Authority was given to them – and to the four Monarchs especially; to _them_ Aslan gave the keys of Narnia and on _them_ built his kingdom."

Hedera tossed her head contemptuously, leaves rustling in the chill Winter wind. Had it not been for that wind and the noise of the nascent party below them, the Islanders and the Narnians might have overheard this conversation. "Narnia is not a Man's country," she began snidely. Rapine interrupted her.

"But it is a country for a Man to be King of." The Dryad snorted angrily, bristling like bramble.

"Oh, so the humans _say_," she snarled, "but what proof do we have of that? A race drunk on power will do everything it can to retain it." Elizabeth raised her head, not hearing the insults but still heart-wrenched that the Dryad couldn't get past her own private demons.

"The Prophecy?" she whispered. Hedera smiled with lips that curled like a leaf of holly.

"Might very well be a lie, invented by the humans to legitimize their rule," she tossed off with bitter contempt. Rapine's snarled response was terrifying.

"I was there when it was spoken, Spymistress!" he growled, the words rumbling in his deep chest. "I saw my friend _die_ as she spoke it. I know the words she said, and I will never forget them." He rumbled a snarl through his teeth, forgetting the gift of language Aslan had given his race at the dawn of Narnia. "Never call me a liar again, Hedera." The Dryad gave a small, sarcastic – but carefully respectful – bow.

"Then it is interpreted wrongly, Colonel," she said, her smile gleaming with cold radiance. "Yes, the Witch's rule ended at the same time as the coming of the Monarchs, but that does not mean they were essential. Aslan did what he did alone – our victories would be the same without our human overlords. To follow them blindly, to assume that they stand in the place of Aslan is folly."

Elizabeth realized, perhaps, there was nothing she could say to change the Dryad's petrified heart. She knew nothing she did would change her, but she still had to try. Perhaps just to be able to say she had, that she had done everything her office demanded, and maybe a little more. "Hedera," she said as gently as she could manage, but with steel authority in her tone, "we humans are as worthy as any to dwell in Narnia, and we have our role to play, just as you do. We are not perfect and, yes, I admit we may have stumbled more than many. But we have risen to greater heights than any other race in Narnia – without the help of the Islanders themselves, we would never have won here today. Without those willing to stand against evil, we would not be celebrating." She paused and looked the Dryad dead in the eyes. "If I had not been here, you would have had humans killed today – innocents slain in order to defeat our enemies." Hedera shrugged with a ghastly casualness.

"You can't make juice without crushing a few berries," she sniffed, turning away. Elizabeth grabbed her by the upper arm and wrenched her back – it was like pulling on a tree and it was only Hedera's willingness to turn that made it possible.

"Then we should wait for a later time to drink," she said silverly. "Are their deaths what Aslan would want? Would _he_ do that? He traded his life for Edmund's – if the Prophecy is such a lie, why did he do that? If he didn't need all four of them, what makes Edmund's life worth it?" Hedera shrugged herself free, looking down her nose at the human.

"You have killed today, Governor – your hands are as bloody as mine. Don't tell me you can fight without killing; victory is bought with blood." She smiled chillingly. "You are no warrior if you think you can win without death." Elizabeth narrowed her dark eyes.

"Oh, yes," she said with a humorless smile as lupine as Rapine's, "there are times when you have to kill your enemies – but never your allies. And never those who have surrendered and are no longer your foe. It does not matter what we may suffer, we never take up the weapons of our enemies." Hedera's gaze was flat and emotionless – she was simply waiting for the human to finish, hearing the words yet not. Elizabeth sighed with frustration, and then gave up. "I don't give a damn what you think of us or what hurts you have suffered or you think you have suffered; you will listen to me for I am gifted with my authority by King Edmund and Aslan. These are my Islands and my people; they follow me. I will not have you act like this." The Dryad laughed.

"Yours? Girl, 'your' Islands are no such thing – not yet, at least. Until the Governor is dead, this will not be over." The veiled threat and challenge was not lost on Elizabeth. She drew herself to her full height, but Rapine - gray and terrible at her heels – stopped her before she could blaze at the Dryad.

"To blindly follow a human merely because he is human is wrong, Hedera," he said, "but following the human who follows the breath of Aslan is wise. And, if they betray that office, then they will suffer the censure of Aslan. _We_ are the will of the Lion, _we_ are his instruments in this world – and it is the humans who should conduct us."

Hedera laughed. "You, wolf, would have us wait until we were stone again before you raised your paw against the humans!" she chuckled. "You would have Narnia overrun with human sorcery again before you would turn against those who hurt you." Elizabeth's eyes narrowed.

"Jadis was not human," she said quietly. Hedera turned a withering gaze on her.

"Was she not?" she asked innocently, "Strange that she looked like one, that her claim to be Queen was based on that. That you, yourself, could masquerade _so very well_ as her." She paused. "I find it . . . _convenient_ the usurper Queen who would be the blackest spot against your race just happens not to be human." She turned to Rapine. "I am loyal to Aslan, and to the Monarchs. I tore down the wall that allowed our army entry and I have served King Edmund with my leaves and sap since he took the throne. He is the King of Narnia and I recognize that – but that is in spite of his humanity, not because of it."

A sense of desperation settled on Elizabeth – she felt as if there were some words lurking just beyond her tongue that, if she could only find them, would bridge the gulf between the two of them. They were both followers of Aslan, both would die for Narnia. Yet . . . did something so petty as this have to divide them so much? Did the fact Hedera and her had wholly different views about the family of Peter make them _enemies_?

"We are trying," she said desperately, "Pick a target worthy of your ire if you must; Edmund and I lead armies, I fought like a lion, look what he went through for you!" She gestured weakly at the blood that still marked the stone of the dais. The Dryad's face was immobile.

"That does not make you any greater than any other follower of Aslan," she said dispassionately. Elizabeth made a last desperate attempt.

"No, not better – but at least as worthy. A different office to fulfill, but an office nevertheless." She held the Dryad's eyes in hers, willing her to believe. "Who shattered the Witch's wand? Who fulfilled the Prophecy? Who planted the Tree?"

Hedera gave a casual shrug. "And the one who planted it brought the reason it was necessary to Narnia. You humans don't really understand Aslan – you follow your Kings and lords before you follow him." It didn't matter that that was untrue, that Hedera didn't understand and didn't seem to want to understand – it was what she believed. "I will place my trust in Aslan, in what he said and did. Narnia would be fine without a King or humans – we do not need a ruler."

Elizabeth realized – as keenly as she realized what Aslan _said_ was that Peter would be High King over all Kings and what he _did_ was crown him - there were wounds that went too-deep to be healed, poison that was too-ingrained to be excised. She wondered if Queen Swanwhite had had such a conversation with Hedera and Rapine a century before. She wondered just why Rapine had been stone and Hedera had slumbered for those ten decades.

Inside her heart, she wept that this Dryad – this creature who would die for Aslan, who had fought all her life for him – was blinded to the truth by her own hatred and unwillingness to listen. And she hated herself for making such a judgment, even through she knew she was right.

"May I go now?" Hedera asked sarcastically.

"Go," said Elizabeth, and watched with depression one of the reasons they could celebrate victory – and the creature who had soured it for her – vanish into the throng.


	36. Of Bows and Burning Gold

**Chapter Thirty-Six : Of Bows and Burning Gold**

There were few sights across the length and breadth of Narnia that equaled a full-blown Centaur-charge. In fact, it wasn't simply a _sight_ – it was a sound, a sensation and a scent as well; the pounding, drumming crashes of iron-shod spatulate hooves the size of bucklers striking sparks from the flinty floor; the spicy reek of horse-sweat, leather and armor-oil; the reverberations that made internal organs tremble like knees.

During the Battle of Beruna, Peter and Oreius had lead a great chevron of stallions, bannerettes fluttering in the Spring breeze, long limbs churning, a ripple of sunlight passing down the line as lances were dropped and couched into position. Queen Susan's charge now was built on a wholly different scale – only six sets of hooves pounded the ground rather than the hundred or more her brother had, and still routinely, led – but was no less impressive.

Under the light of the three-quarter moon, Susan's armor shone like the sun, her streaming black cloak and whipping braid of jewel-tied hair flickering like shadow behind her. Niamh's coat – "within three shades of a newly-minted coin" as her husband never tired of telling her – blazed like molten gold. Her hooves churned fans of snow to the left and right, sparkling in the actinic, monochrome moonlight to rainbows of pale color To the left and right, the five stallions who had ridden out with their Queen - the remaining five staying in the village to guard the refugees already there and arriving – gleamed silver-white in the darkness, their armor and polished leather shining like mirrors.

A few minutes hard gallop north brought them clear of the woods, overlooking a small stream that twinkled in the moonlight at the bottom of the ridge they found themselves on. Niamh pulled up short even before Susan's hands tightened on the reins and her weight settled back in the saddle. Around them, the Centaurs came to a foaming halt in a clatter of armor

The moonlight provided enough illumination to see the scene unfolding before them; protected and guarded by a number of the soldiers of the Army of the East – Fauns, Dryads and woodland creatures in the main, for there were few Centaurs in the woods and no mountains for the Dwarfs – a snaking column of refugees was making its way towards the river. Their painfully slow progress – hampered by the night and weariness and the baggage they were carrying – could be determined by the birch-bark torches held aloft to provide some light. The resinous lamps provided pools of illumination – pools in which scattered scenes of desperation and fright could be seen. The column was running as well as it could, over uneven ground and in the confusing darkness of the dead of night. Cold and weariness were sapping their strength.

Pursuing them, in a ragged mass that bulged and broke into fragments and reformed as the whim took it, were the forces of the Witch. Susan gulped and swallowed her fear as best she could; the last time she had seen any of these had been when she was a little girl cowering in the bushes as they thundered past, tears streaking her face as Aslan lay dead. The darkness hid the worst of their hideousness from her, but she knew that soon they would be seen in the bright light of day – and there was no great army of her brother to defeat them _this_ time.

There were not, she estimated, so very many of them. They were, however, too many for the soldiers defending the column to drive off. And, on the open terrain to the north of this river, there was no way to prevent some of them going around any defensive perimeter and running the refugees to ground.

The Narnians were half a mile from the river – and Susan saw that they were half a mile from death. The river could be forded easily by all but the smallest creatures, but the ridge beyond it was too high and too steep to climb quickly. The monsters would be on them before they had reached the top. They would be dragged down into the stream and the water would run red all the way to the mouth of the River at the Cair. The Queen turned to the Captain.

"How far until they can cross the river and reach the marshaling point?" He seemed to consider.

"A league to the west, maybe more." he answered grimly. His paired blades span inside sparkling arcs of their own reflected moonlight as he drew them.

"Do you trust me?" she asked quietly. His answer was immediate and not even a fraction surprised.

"As if you were Aslan himself." She nodded, and gestured with her sword.

"Send one of your stallions to lead the people westwards to where they can cross the river safely, the rest of you try to keep me alive." The Captain looked a touch uncertain, but he nodded at the youngest of his warriors to discharge the first part of her order. The young Centaur looked put-out that a share of glory might not be his.

"Your majesty, what are you suggesting?" asked the Captain. She smiled.

"_I _am the target of this assault, remember?" she grinned, "They will let my people go and try to slaughter _me_." The Captain was aghast.

"Your majesty, there are fifty or more there! They may very well _succeed_!" Susan's smile of calm surety was so beautiful, so heavy with authority that the Captain could say nothing more.

"Then it'll be time for Queen Susan to die," she said simply. Susan turned to face the field she had chosen for her first battle and considered if everyone had felt like this; sick to their stomach and so scared any death seemed preferable to the apprehension. "Ready, Niamh?" she whispered to the shaking horse – it was, Susan reflected, her first time in battle too. The mare's response was an affirmative whinny and then her front hooves left the ground and she reared backwards as Susan brandished her sword in the air, it sparkling like a spar of golden lightning.

"For Narnia and for Aslan!" she screamed, her voice cutting through the night air that was already ringing with the pounding of feet and panting of breath from the pursuit in front of them, "Queen Susan rides to war!" She twitched the reins and Niamh leaped from the ridge, splashing into the gravely bed of the river in a spray of water and stone. Five Centaurs unhesitatingly followed her, their powerful legs flexing as they landed in the icy cold water. Gravel crunched under them as their muscles flexed, sending them galloping forward with as much speed as they could muster, their Queen out in front by a length or more, leaning into her horse's neck, her sword upright and gleaming as both banner and challenge.

They met the refugees a third of a mile out. The column parted like curtains as Susan went through them like an arrow from a bow. With military precision no-one had any time to admire but without which the whole thing would have collapsed into chaos, the youngest of the Centaurs wheeled off and stationed himself at the head of the column, bellowing orders. The Captain raced to the eastern side of the refugees as his remaining three soldiers galloped frantically in Susan's wake. As he galloped past what would soon be the southernmost side of the column as it wheeled to the right, he yelled commands to the faster and tougher of the soldiers there; _Your Queen needs you! Follow me! We take the battle to the enemy!_

Clumsily, raggedly, the column of refugees shifted and snaked to the right, moving to the west and parallel with the river. Susan and her bodyguard – now swelled by some half-dozen soldiers who had been guarding the column – burst clear of the stragglers, hooves pounding through churned mud and snow, strewn here and there with the flotsam and jetsam of articles discarded to speed the refugees' flight. The young Centaur wheeled back, pushing them into a tighter line, screaming orders at the soldiers on the northern edge of the fragmenting column.

Ahead of her bodyguard by a good ten feet – close enough to be protected, but far enough away to feel it – Susan suddenly realized this was it. The curtain of thin clouds that had laid gauze over everything drew back from the moon and the night sprang into crisp focus. Ahead of her, a seeming wall of fangs and matted fur and talons and claws and horns reared up, snarling and drooling and immovable. There was no time to stop, no time to slow, no time even for prayer.

She dug her heels deeper into Niamh's flanks and the two of them hit their enemies at a gallop. A splintered second later, four Centaurs impacted alongside her with a terrible crash of metal on bone.

She remembered nothing of the initial exchange after the first swing of her sword; a swing which decapitated a drooling Cruel with skin and flesh like melting wax and nine-inch claws as sharp as razors dipped in blood. Everything was simply a swirl of metal and flesh, bone and blood, heat and hair. She vaguely felt blows and numbing, jarring impacts transmitted along her arm from her sword. Something wet and salty was on her lips and she had to blink her eyes to clear the sweat from them.

She came back to awareness, her limbs and mind burning with adrenaline and everything seeming to move in casual slow motion, half-way to the ground. Even as she flexed her shoulders, twisting in the air to land on them and not her back with a numbing crash, she took in the fact that Niamh had reared over-ambitiously, getting clear of a Minotaur's swung ax. The blade of Susan's sword was buried between its clavicle and trapezius, the quillons splitting the arterial spray into a fan like a statue in a fountain. More importantly for the falling Queen, the hilt was not in her hand.

The horse crashed over on her side with a protesting whinny, nearly crushing Susan who barely rolled to the side and back to her feet in time. Beside her, the monster thundered to the ground, forcing the snake-headed horror leaping for Susan to jump backwards to avoid being smashed to the ground by the mass of dead Minotaur.

The young Centaur had reached the end of the column he was leading and protecting, chivvying and driving the stragglers along. Black Dwarfs clogged his path, Efreets harrying him. He trampled a few, hacked down the remainder and screamed in pain as a knife stabbed into the muscle of his haunch, under the mail skirt. He whirled to see a hideously ugly woman with thin, dirty gray hair that seemed to blow in a different wind than was sweeping the land. Her skin was filthy with dirt and lice and the breath that washed from her was foul. Behind drooling lips and broken teeth a malformed tongue was chanting sorcerous syllables in some dark language even as it licked his blood from her knife. He could feel something in his chest constricting, his heart laboring

"Die, Hag!" he bellowed, rearing and cantering around to her, even as he felt his limbs stiffen and muscles weaken. She tried to leap backwards, out of range of his grasp, but she had misjudged the length of his strong arm. A single massive hand caught her by the throat and hoisted her scrawny body above his head, her enchantments giving way to choking gurgles.

"Ah, brave Centaur," she wheezed and wheedled even as his fingers tightened and his face twisted in revulsion at the parasites crawling out of her matted hair onto his hand, "you wouldn't hurt a poor old widow woman, would . . . ?" She got no further as he jerked his fist rapidly from side to side, snapping her neck like an autumn twig, and threw her body into the nearest tree with a crackle of bone. Before the corpse had bounced down into the snow his blade had swung again and one of the People of the Toadstools span away, its stalk and cap separated in a shower of spores.

In the center of the melee, where Susan and her bodyguard were surrounded by the bodies of their foes, there was a silent pause. Susan's bow was in her left hand with her right hovering close to the crimson flights of arrows that poked over her shoulder. The snake-headed creature – green and venomous, with a long lashing tail and the sculpted body of a beautiful woman, its four arms lashing a quartet of blades into a poison-dripping web of steel – snarled and hissed at Susan, licking long fangs with a forked tongue.

"No sword, Daughter of Eve?" it mocked, "I guess this is where the rules change."

"You guess right," said Susan shortly and put an arrow through its right eye before even its ophidian reflexes could twitch a sword towards her. Before the convulsing green scales had begun to tumble, Susan's hand had darted back to her shoulder again, her nimble fingers snatching two arrows and – as she moved to nock them to the string – her teeth stripped one of the feathers from one of them. The bow creaked sharply and the string twanged.

One of the arrows flew straight and true into the heart of a bristle-haired Dwarf, punching through his chainmail with terrible close-range force, while the other curved with an elegant grace and struck a black-skinned Bogart in the neck. Susan leaped backwards, inside the swing of her Captain's twinned blades, ducking below them as they razored the air inches above her head. Her bow sang again as the edge of one of the swords took the end off her ponytail, scattering priceless jeweled beads and trimmed ebony hair that would have filled the lockets of a dozen Princes.

Her back against the Centaur's armored chest now, his blades crossed in front of her like a bladed cage, she swept her eyes around the battlefield. Her nerves were keyed to a fever-pitch of excitement, she was _feeling_ rather than _thinking_. Despite the horror that this was – the blood on her armor, the aches in her body, the stench of sweat and cries of pain – she could see that there might be those who liked this sort of thing.

The fact that one of them was her elder brother only made her feel the envy and pity more keenly.

She rolled forwards as an Ogre swung a club at her face; the Captain parried the blow as best he could, but the sheer force of it knocked him flying. She span between the monster's spread legs and shot it in the base of the skull. Around her, the Centaurs were leaping and slashing, their swords painting crimson lines in the air and their hooves cracking skulls.

She shook her head as she felt her braid begin to unravel, her waist-length hair opening out from the wrist-thick cord into a second cloak strung with tumbling and falling points of brilliant multicolored light. Her right hand grabbed for another arrow as her left dropped to her hip and pulled a knife free, holding it alongside her bow, in line with the stave.

As a Cruel leapt for her, iron-hard talons leering jealously for her face, she span her wrist in a figure of eight, taking it twice across the throat with the blade and smashing it away with the wood of her bow. She drove the arrow six inches deep into the throat of an Ogre, withdrew the shaft as it fell and shot the Dwarf behind it between the eyes before reaching for another.

She risked a glance at the column of refugees – it was running now, a new impetus and energy feeding the leaden limbs of the Narnian civilians. The young Centaur was rearing and fighting, his swords spinning in deadly fans of silver and crimson. Every second he and the column guards held out bought them more time, and every single moment she proved hard to kill brought more pressure to bear on her and took it off them.

It was, she reflected as Niamh rolled back to her hooves and kicked outward with bone-shattering force, breaking the trunk and branches of a corrupted Dryad and sending cankered and galled fruits scattering over the snow, simply a question of whether she could stand the pressure. Could her bodyguards keep her alive long enough for the civilians to get free? Could they keep her alive at all?

Behind her, the Captain struggled to his feet, sweeping the blow of a Minotaur aside with his paired blades. The monster reversed its grip on the haft and slammed the butt of the weapon into the Centaur's chest with a dreadful crack. For a second, the Captain's eyes glazed, his lungs and heart re-set by the impact. And then the butt of Minotaur's ax cracked him on the side of the head and he knew no more.

Susan's hand span over her shoulder for another arrow, found one, and sent it flying into the back of the Minotaur's skull. Almost incuriously, it turned to her; slowly, as it its thoughts were pinned in place by the shaft. She reached for another – an arrow through the eye would end this.

Her hand met empty air.

She did not hesitate for a second – she slung the bow and rolled out of the way of a sluggish ax swing. Her hand found the hilt of her golden blade and – with one foot on the shoulder of the monster and a great twisting wrench – she pulled it free. She knew she had no chance of meeting this beast toe-to-hoof – its power would break every bone in her arms if she tried. She dived to the side, rising and sweeping her blade upwards, the whole strength of her thighs, hips and shoulders in the blow.

The creature exploded at the midriff, her blade bursting through its waist in a welter of blood and intestines. She wasn't sure if the stench of rotting flesh was its own innards or its last meal.

But there were simply too few of them – they were surrounded now, all of them tired, not a single one of them uninjured. They had fought well and made their enemies pay a bloody price for their deaths – scarcely a score of the monsters remained, over two dozen had fallen to their blades. Yet it was only a matter of time. Susan snapped her blade to the salute. "Sell your lives as dearly as you can!" she cried, "Commend yourselves to the Lion!" _I would have liked,_ she mused, _to have _won _my first battle. But I did what I had to._

A great feline roar, lean and fast and somehow metallic. A leaping lithe shape – a narrow-waisted, somehow feminine, long-tailed shadow against the stars of the night - crashed into one of the faces of an Ettin. As if it were made of steel springs wrapped in razor-sharp velvet, it savaged the throat of the monster and leapt again, smashing a Hag off her feet before she could even think about sorcery.

All around the Narnians, cats – great, massive beasts; night-black panthers, brindled orange and sable tigers, spotted leopards and even a few tawny-maned lions – were pouncing into the melee. Everything was lashing tails and slashing claws around the Centaurs and Susan as Niamh neighed and reared, instinctively shying away from these terrible creatures. A few of the monsters turned to flee – they got mere feet before a couple of the swifter creatures – a midnight-black leopard and a copper-red puma – leapt on them and savaged them into bleeding ruin.

The first cat to leap into the melee – a true panther, Susan could see, by the length of the tail – diligently licked her paw and ran it over her head, smoothing her dark – although not _perfectly_ black - fur back. "Your majesty," she purred.

"Elikolani!" Susan exclaimed, recognizing the Colonel of the Dancing Lawn elite, "I did not expect you to see you here!" The cat's purr deepened into warmer sarcasm.

"We arrived at the Cair just before midnight," she growled, moving forward and licking Susan's offered hand. This was not just a gesture of fealty – it served a practical purpose, cleaning the Queen's armor of the blood and gore that slicked it. To Elikolani and her troupe – nominally Queen Susan's bodyguards, but so infrequently was she abroad they generally fulfilled a different office – she was as much the head of their pride as Edmund was the alpha of the Lantern Waste elite. "General Oreius ordered us – as your bodyguards – to your side." Susan rolled her eyes and gave a grateful chuckle. "He might have got swifter results by telling us not to." The contrariness of the Dancing Lawn elite was legendary.

"You are most welcome!" The words came from Susan's heart. The two cats who had chased down the fleeing monsters – Carmit the Red with the distinctive scar on her muzzle and the leopard Sutta – padded closer to her and gently licked at her fingertips. Almost distractedly, Susan tangled her hands in their warm fur, a smile on her lips as she realized that – despite all her worries and everything she had said to the General, she was as safe out here as she might have been in Cair Paravel. She rarely spent much time with the Dancing Lawn elite – there was something decidedly uncomfortable about being treated as their equal. It was one thing for Edmund to spend more time with the wolves than anything else – and she did not like to think about just _how many _of the stories concerning his treaty negotiations were true; of being bloodied as a member of their packs, of winning the Alpha contests and unifying tribes that had been enemies for one hundred years – it was quite another for her to be a _cat_. She snapped out of her reverie as Kimba – the slender lioness whose fur was so pale it was practically blonde – gave a roar of warning.

"Your majesty! Re-enforcements approach!" Susan span around, ready to give orders to get the Captain conscious and on his hooves – but the brindled tiger Melody was diligently licking his face with her sandpaper tongue. He came around and spluttered, shoving the big cat away with an oath in a language none of them could speak. The cats gave throaty chuckles as Susan swung herself into Niamh's saddle and lead her warriors to the west at the double.

oOo

Susan, Niamh and the Centaurs who had ridden with them snatched a few hours of sleep while the cats and the remaining Centaurs patrolled the village and organized the arrival of the refugees, loading the carts with the supplies they brought and billeting them to take what rest they could. More than once, a couple of the cats and a Centaur galloped out to drive off the odd lone Boggart or prowling Ghoul that was harrying the Narnians and bring them safely home.

Susan awoke mid-morning and – after a breakfast taken around the dying embers of the fire the Centaurs had lit the night before to guide the refugees in, talking with her people and doing her best to allay their fears and gift them with a little of her strength – she had met with the Captain and Elikolani.

"Carmit and Kimba are still out, your majesty," purred the panther, "but Sutta and Melody report that north of here and as far east as the sea is empty save for our enemies." The Centaur nodded.

"By my calculations, there are some score and a half left – Colonel Elikolani's troupe should be able to bring them in without any trouble." He glanced at the sun, "They should be here by noon." Susan nodded.

"Let a meal be served at one, we will set out for the Cair at two. Speed is our priority, but these people will be tired – and they are not soldiers for the most part. If we can arrive at the Cair by nightfall, I will be satisfied." The Captain gave a curt nod.

By noon, Kimba and Carmit loped into the village, leading the final column of Narnians. By now, the village was crowded and packed to capacity and beyond. With the soldiers of the Army of the East now bolstering her own force of Centaurs and cats, she had some two and half hundreds. It was dreadfully tempting to forge Lucy's troops into an arrowhead and strike at the approaching enemies – but she knew that was folly. There were too few of them to make a dint. Perhaps if Peter had been here, he could have lead them. But not her – the very idea made her queasy and sick. It was only in combat itself that her hands had stilled – and she dare not risk such a bloody baptism again.

She felt no shame in the realization she was not a warrior. Yes, her skills against unliving targets and with baited blades had been sufficient to render her formidable, but she would never learn to like it, or even tolerate it. Her armor was a cage, her sword a shackle, even her beloved bow a binding. Sword reversed, kneeling with her head bowed, she prayed to the Lion she need never be tested like this again.

She knew, in her heart of hearts, it was fruitless.

At one, a cheerless meal was served – there was no wine and precious little water. The meat was cold and salted, the bread two days stale and the cheese curling to rind. This was the last of the supplies – the very dregs that were not loaded on the carts. Susan made point of eating the same meal as her people, breaking the bread before them and driving her dagger downwards as they followed. With an effort, she swallowed a few morsels – her palate was over-used to the fineries of the Cair. Edmund or Peter would be fine with this, she mused disconsolately, and Lucy would put a brave face on it anyway.

At two, the Captain of the Centaurs organized the Narnians into a marching column headed by the Queen and five of the Centaurs, with him and the remaining four bringing up the rear. On the flanks, the soldiers marched, and in the center – walking wearily alongside the carts or riding on them – were the civilians. Elikolani and her troupe prowled the edges and ranged ahead, a dozen feline shapes in the deepening afternoon as the sun sank.

After the excitement of the previous night – the fight, the flight, the terror for the war-virgins Susan and Niamh – the journey back to the Cair was an anti-climax. Kept at a constant state of apprehension by the fear of attack, exhausted by nervousness and the gnawing worry, the soldiers marched mechanically, the people tearfully and some of them wanting to simply lay down and sleep. The Dancing Lawn elite were skittish and jumpy, but it was impossible to determine how much of that was the stress of the war and how much was natural temperament.

Night fell – for a march of half a day could not be accomplished in that time by weary civilians. For the old, infirm and the children, it was simply too much. Each of the Centaurs – an almost-unheard of occurrence which Susan simply _ordered_ – bore one or more of the smaller ones of their backs. Susan dismounted and stationed two elderly Fauns on Niamh while she herself carried a sleeping fox cub in her arms as she marched along.

The sun fell, and the moon rose and the stars began to appear one by one. And still they marched, the Spear Head directly behind them. The land rose and became rockier as they came closer to the Cair. And then, eventually, in the dead of night, the Cair itself was visible – a great spike of white stone and leaded glass gleaming black in the moonlight. A stab of pain took her through the heart when she saw none of the Royal Standards flying from the towers. _I'm coming home,_ she smiled through her tears.

It was the final mile that promised some excitement – for Melody loped to the head of the column and bowed before her mistress, not even waiting for permission to speak.

"Your majesty," she panted, "our enemies close – if we do not move swiftly, they will be on us before we reach the walls of the Cair." Susan's face twisted, cracking the mask of weariness which had settled on it, and she shifted the fox more comfortably in her arms.

"Sprint to the Cair as swiftly as you may," she ordered the tigress. "Have them lower the drawbridge as we approach, and be ready to draw it up with all speed when we are inside. Have Oreius station archers on the walls." _Idiot, Susan,_ she cursed silently, _Micromanaging idiot – Oreius can defend a castle. Concentrate on getting your people home._ Melody bowed and loped away, a framework of orange and white wrapping black fur that faded into the night.

The word was swiftly passed along the column and – with tears of effort and exhortations from the Centaurs and Susan – the Narnians began first to walk swiftly, and then jog and, finally, as the first monsters became visible in the twisted moonlight, run as if their lives depended on it.

_Which, of course, _Susan mused through gritted teeth as she sprinted in her heavy armor, her breath coming in ragged gasps, _it does._

The ridge behind them had grown a hedge of spear points, an ugly canker of gnarled shapes – the shadows of monsters standing like a saw-toothed fence on the hill. With a roar of anger and hatred, they charged after the Narnians.

Elikolani and her troupe ran, swifter than Niamh and even the Centaurs, dashing hither and thither among the jostling column, leaping amid the pounding Narnians, jumping from cart to churned snow and back to cart again. Each grasped a child – a Faun, a Dryad sapling, a cub or pup – by the clothes or the scruff of the neck in velveted jaws and ran – limbs burning with the effort, spines flexing and stretching as only they could – for the Cair. There, they deposited the mewling children on the drawbridge where Susan's army of Dryads- and Naiads-in-waiting hastened to bear them into the castle.

And then those weary cats turned and did it again. And again. And again.

Susan turned and thrust the fox cub into Sutta's jaws, standing stock still as her people ran past her. She was five hundred yards from the drawbridge – and roughly the same distance from the bulk of the approaching horde. The moon was high now, pregnant with the madness that was descending on Narnia. She could see the danger that faced her people.

The bulk of the army would not reach the fleeing Narnians in time to catch them - they were not twice as fast as those they pursued. But, streaking ahead of the army, were the thick-limbed White Tigers of the North – creamy-white beasts with silver-gray markings, strong and powerful. The swiftest of the Witch's fighters, the ones against whom the Dancing Lawn elite had bloodied themselves in the Battle of Beruna. She counted half a dozen – she had refilled her quiver with twice that many arrows.

Her bow had a range of three hundred yards – those cats could cover that distance in less than half a minute. In the few seconds she had left before her bow was in range, she jerked the arrows from her quiver and stabbed their points in the ground. And then she went down on one knee, nocked the first arrow and drew it back.

It wasn't really possible – moving targets, white on white in the moonlight, six of them, less than five seconds to take up each arrow, nock, draw, aim and fire. The targets had to be chosen in the correct order. Each shot had to be a kill, a kill of a beast that weighed anything up to a quarter of a tonne. Weariness had her by the scruff of the neck, the terror of such monsters running towards her faster than a horse could gallop lay icy fingers on her heart.

It simply _couldn't be done._

Susan the Gentle, by gift of Aslan Queen of Narnia and Empress of the Lone Islands, Duchess of the Southern March, Countess of the Dancing Lawn, an archer the equal of Artemis, did it without even thinking. Her hands moved of their own volition, golden fingers plucking at the string of her bow like a harpist, a single-note counterpoint to the prayer to Aslan on her perfect lips the whole time.

The final beast died three feet from her – a blind Faun couldn't miss at that range, but neither would anything stop the tiger's headlong plunge. The carcase slumped to the snowy ground, snapping the remaining arrows skewered into the earth with its weight and sending up great sprays of ice. The hot corpse slammed into Susan, knocking her off her feet and sending her crashing to the ground underneath it, unconscious.

So she didn't see Elikolani and Melody sprinting towards her, the panther dragging her dead foe off her and the gigantic tigress grabbing her around the waist and hoisting her up. She remembered only fitful, painful dreams of rides in cars with poor suspension over cobbled streets as the great brindled creature raced for the drawbridge. She didn't hear Elikolani howling "Raise the bridge!" as they approached, denying their enemies the opportunity to enter the castle. The only sign of the fact her head bashed against the underside of the bridge as Melody leapt a clear seven feet with her in her mouth and clung to the rising wood with her massive paws was a bruise on her neck.

It was merely the scrapes on her armor that told the story of how the tigress managed to haul her Queen over the edge of the nearly-vertical bridge, and it was only the limp in Elikolani's normally svelte stride that showed the Colonel had leaped over the bridge as Susan fell, twisting herself under Susan in a parody of the cat's natural tendency in order to cushion her fall into the gatehouse with her own body.

But, next morning, when Susan stood on the highest tower of the Cair at dawn, she was told the final chapter of the story.

As she raised the enchanted horn to her lips and blew – the clear note, rich and resonant, spiraling upwards and across lands and oceans, calling for whatever aid might come - Susan saw the vast besieging army that faced them. A sea of monsters surrounded the Cair, the onrushing horde she knew Melody had fallen into from the drawbridge as it closed.

For, on the largest banner of the army of the Witch, the great brindled body of Melody the tigress of the Dancing Lawn elite was crucified; the single one of her people Queen Susan had failed to bring home.


	37. Indivisible Flesh

**A/n:** The name Palomnus is taken from Alymra's stories; he's one of her original characters who features in several of her Narnia stories. I have her permission to use this character.

**Chapter Thirty-Seven : Indivisible Flesh**

Peter was as solid as his name and yet as wild as a hurricane; there was calm in his eye and he wanted to blow them all away. The remains of his breakfast – bread that had seen better days, meat that had never known them and brackish water diluted with bitter wine half-turned to vinegar – lay on the table beside the throne of wooden boards and posts and pegs erected in the tent that was his quasi-mobile court. He narrowed his sea-blue eyes against the rising sun lancing through the half-open tent flap and stretched the frame that was nearing manhood, easing the kinks that were turning to bruises. He looked at the sealed letter in his hand.

"You are certain of this?" he asked and immediately regretted it. Of course Reynard was, he simply would not have told the High King this news if he were not entirely sure of his facts. The fox nodded, his limbs trembling with effort. Peter remembered his manners.

"Have my troops offered you refreshment?" he asked. The fox panted his response – he had had enough time to regain his breath, but the break-neck race from the Cair to the moorlands north of the Shribble through woods filled with enemies was too much to be sponged away by a few minutes spent presenting a damning report to your lord and master.

"They have, your majesty, but I thought it wise to present this to you immediately." Peter nodded.

"Have you anything more to add?" he asked. The messenger shook his vulpine head. "Then get some rest and some food." Peter snapped his fingers for Palomnus his attendant, wincing as the hair-line fractures in his digits creaked. A Giant's club had caught him on his right hand three days before, sending Rhindon flying. If he wasn't careful, one of these days a blow like that would land somewhere important and he'd be laid up for weeks.

The Faun moved forward and gently escorted the exhausted fox from the tent. Peter remained staring at the letter for a few moments – precious vellum, folded expertly and without a single hesitation; four folds each at _precisely_ the right point to make a perfect square, _just enough_ crimson wax dripped on their junction, the silken ribbon with the carved amber keepsake folded in _perfectly_ while it was still warm and then the whole thing sealed with his sister's diminutive ring. His gaze fell on the matching signet ring on his right hand – heavy and coarse in comparison to the one that would be resting on her lily-white hand. Idly, he looked at the whorls of the Lion's mane and the reverse-sunk eyes; fragments of red wax were embedded in them, the legacy of sealing letters too-quickly, with one's mind on other things.

Susan's ring would be pristine – and she never cleaned it.

He turned the letter over – his name and titles were written in flowing, elegant Copperplate, scarcely blotted, no faint lines of charcoal ruling underneath them, all uniform black. _His Imperial Majesty High King Peter of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, Emperor of the Lone Islands._

Was he any of those things?

He did not feel them – yet he knew he _should_. He was the High King, universally loved by his people and his family. He was undefeated in war, always victorious in personal combat. His soldiers would follow him anywhere. He was King by gift of Aslan and knew – intellectually – all that was required of him was to obey the Lion. He knew that he was doing the right things.

But he didn't feel it. There was an uncertainty in him; the moment that seemed to have happened (although he could not say _when_) for his siblings had not yet reached him, he thought. He was the great High King Peter, Grand Master of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, Emperor of the Lone Islands, Lord of Cair Paravel . . . all titles he still felt, and perhaps always would, that he was still to earn.

He recognized his inaction as procrastination. Impatiently, he tore at the seal – the wax ripped unevenly and half the letter remained attached. Calmer, he plucked at the carved amber – one of Ed's wolf-trinkets, he noted; this was a gesture of deep love from his sister to give one of those away – and opened the letter by pulling on the ribbon; the way his sister had intended for it to be opened. The script – firm, assured, confident, with not a missed word, tittle or jot – was pure Susan. With one eye on it and one on the flap of his tent – today's sortie was to begin an hour after dawn – he read it;

_Cair Paravel, 16__th__ Frostmelt, Third Year of the Reign of High King Peter of Narnia_

_Peter,_

_As Reynard will no-doubt have told you, Cair Paravel will soon be under siege – perhaps by the time you read this._

_I will not fill this letter with military matters – you know them better than I and will get more from Reynard with a score of questions than I could convey if I wrote until Winter passed to Spring. You know what danger faces the Cair and your country._

_And your sister. I do not beg for aid, Peter – I am a Queen of Narnia and I kneel to no-one, and you know asking for help has never come easy to me. Neither do I demand you stay where you are – you are better equipped to decide what will be wise and what will be folly._

_What I ask of you – my headstrong, willful and brilliant brother – is temperance and a cool head. I ask you to make the decision that needs to be made, and make it without passion, without your anger coloring it._

_You are the greatest warrior in living memory – you know this to be true. You also know – for you have told me so yourself – battles are half-won before blades are drawn._

_Think like the warrior – like the man – you are, and make the correct choice. Do not come howling to defend me if it will leave Narnia naked before the Giants._

_You can make this choice better than I – all I ask is that you make sure you make the right one._

_Your ever-loving sister,_

_Su_

For a full minute, Peter remained staring the end of the letter, perhaps half-expecting a post-script to fade into existence. _All you ask, Su?_ he half-smiled to himself, _All you ask is that I make sure I make the right choice? And would you like the whole of Caldron Pool fitting in your goblet or your bowl?_

Peter folded the velum back along the lines his sister had scored – somehow, it didn't want to go back into the perfect square. He struggled with it for a moment or two – armored fingers clumsy on the delicate skin – and then tossed it to the table. He stood and tried to scrub away the weariness of short Winter days and long Winter nights of campaign as he passed his hands over his face. He flexed his broadening shoulders, feeling the growing tightness of his hauberk. It might very soon be time for another ring or two in the mail – he was outgrowing his armor at a frightening rate.

He felt gawky and gangly, when he looked in the mirror he didn't see the King the others did. His cheeks were downy – he did not shave on campaign as often as he perhaps should, half-thinking it made him look older and half-suspecting it simply made him look as if he were striving too hard. There were moments when his thundered cries in battle were high and clear, his voice shifting and quavering.

He felt too young for it all – too young to be responsible for a Kingdom, a people, his family.

And yet . . . they believed in him. Aslan, the people of Narnia, his family, all were convinced that he could do it. Even when he wasn't himself.

If he had been perhaps a _shade_ more confident, he might have been willing to call them all wrong. He drew Rhindon, reversed it, and knelt before the icon of the Lion. "Let me be worthy of your trust," he whispered.

And then he stood, sheathed his sword and strode from the tent, whistling for his bodyguard and commanders. From the ice-blue skies of the northern Winter they dropped with keening cries, kingship and divinity mixed in their very bodies.

oOo

"Get away!" yelled the Baron, thrusting at the hissing monstrosity with a spear. Almost contemptuously, it grabbed the shaft, pulled hard, and jerked the Narnian Lord off his feet.

The Cruel raised a misshapen paw studded with barbed claws, making ready to bring it down with sickening force on the prostrate Narnian. A few yards away, his wife struggled in the arms of a brace of Black Dwarfs, screaming his name with tears pouring down her face.

From the walls of the valley, a great hunting howl split the air, shattering the bright noon-day sunlight into fractured bars of gold. The Cruel glanced upward just in time to widen its flabby eyes in shock as the great, gray shape of a wolf smashed into its face, jaws savaging and rending. Muscles coiled like sleek springs beneath iron-silver fur and propelled the massive weight of the Lantern Waste Captain into the tangle of Dwarfs and Baroness. Jaws snapped and bit, claws flashed like an unfolding storm, and when the Baroness dared to open her eyes and unclench her muscles from the terror-cramp that had taken them, her assailants lay dead. Licking his long muzzle, the wolf delicately spat out a shred of chainmail as the Baron struggled to his wide feet. He brushed snow from his fur as his wife ran over to him and cuddled him with uncomprehending joy.

"Drax?" asked Beaver bluntly, "Wot you doin' 'ere?" His wife stepped forward across the dam, smiling sweetly and adding diplomacy to her husband's words.

"What I'm sure he means, Captain, is that . . ." Drax did not waste time on pleasantries.

"Baroness, Baron," he growled in greeting. "Where are Queen Lucy and Marshal Nicodemus? I must speak with them urgently." Beaver jerked his head.

"North, the Silver Citadel." The wolf bowed his head and made to sprint away. Beaver's words stopped him, "Drax."

The wolf turned. "Thanks," Beaver said simply. The former-traitor smiled, bowed his head again, and was gone faster than a horse could gallop.

oOo

"You know as well as I do we cannot disengage our forces swiftly," the Gryphon said, her voice high and clear and caught somewhere between a screech and a growl. The bony planes of her beak – cruel and curved like a Calormen scimitar – gave a strange metallic quality to the feline purr of her feathered throat. Peter's face twisted in annoyance.

"I do not employ you to lecture me, nor to tell me that which I know, girl," he said shortly. Briefly, he wondered what this _female_ was doing in the Moorland elite – since Coriadine's death, were they letting just about anyone in? Surely he didn't have so few Gryphons in his army that commissions to the elite were handed out to _women_?

"I stand corrected, sire," she said with easy grace. Her leonine body with its great aquiline forequarters – the size of a horse or larger – was perched on a jutting shoulder of rock that rose from the marshy ground. Mist rolled from the wet earth underfoot, giving the impression Peter floated above the clouds, surrounded by half-a-dozen Gryphons perched on mountaintops. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples.

"I know we cannot withdraw immediately," he said, "and neither do I suggest it would be a wise course of action. But . . . aid must come to the Cair." The Gryphon nodded and delicately preened her feathers with her razor-sharp beak. Peter turned to face the other Gryphons, sharpening their claws or ruffling their feathers ready for the fight. "My vote goes for a change in our strategies – consolidation rather than advance, establishing and securing our borders; possibly as far south as the Shribble." Eagle-eyes widened in surprise.

"Sire!" exclaimed Colonel Ferrox with a roar filtered through avian vocal chords, "No! It would undo the work of the last month and a half!" Peter's face remained impassive.

"Securing at the Shribble can be accomplished within perhaps a week – a border further north will take longer and greater resources, the Cair cannot hold for that long," he said flatly, hating himself for the shrill tone that always crept into his voice when he got flustered. "If we pull back to the Shribble, we may be able to march on the Cair with two or three hundreds – which will make a decisive impact on the siege."

"March in how long?" asked Ferrox, his voice inheriting the unintended sarcasm of his torso, "Ten days? More?" He shook his head. "I suggest increasing the violence of our assaults – driving the Giants back and achieving a swift victory. If we have sufficient strength we can force the Giants into an armistice and fly for the Cair with the majority of our forces. Three weeks." He paused. "That is what my vote is for."

"And I am certain," purred the female Gryphon, "that when this becomes a democracy, High King Peter will bear that in mind." Ferrox growled deep in his cavernous chest, but the Gryphoness remained impassive as Peter turned to face her.

"Who _are_ you?" he asked, "I do not recall appointing a woman to the Moorland elite."

"No," she said, "you didn't – Colonel Ferrox did." Peter was about to expostulate at his chief bodyguard, but the Gryphoness interrupted him. "My name is Eruanne, Coriadine was my husband. We have no children – according to the ancient Code, I may take his place in your armies." Peter sighed deeply.

"Eruanne," he began carefully, "I understand your grief and that passions run high in women-folk, but to take up arms and throw away your life in your grief is madness." He paused, "War is no place for a woman." Eruanne narrowed her eyes.

"Are you married, Sire?" she asked, her beak clacking open and revealing warm inner surfaces – crimson red even though there were no chicks pecking at them to make her regurgitate food. "Have you joined your flesh to someone else? Have you accepted someone else's deeds and responsibilities as your own? Have you ever known a person with whom you weren't sure where you ended and she began?" Peter opened his mouth to protest, to explain. "Well, I have! I married my husband shortly after you won at the Battle of Beruna, a year later he was your Marshal and six months after he was dead in your service."

"For which I am truly sorry, Eruanne, but . . ."

"Spare me your sympathy, I do not ask for it and neither would he. He knew the risks as did I. Why do you think Aslan made the ancient Codes, sire?" she asked with a screech and a beating of her magnificent tawny wings. "Because he knew what to be married meant – it means to _be_ that person, to not _share_ their triumphs and failures, but to _know_ them and _be_ them. I am as much your Marshal as he was, Sire – I know you cannot grant me that position, but at least you can let me do what we promised!"

For a second, Peter stood silent. No, he didn't understand. He was simply too young, he thought, too unaware of the subtleties of the world. There were things in the world he suspected he would _never_ understand. For a moment, he wondered if he was _supposed_ to understand them and that his lack of comprehension marked him as a failure. And then the sense of confidence he could always feel if he didn't deliberately seek it out washed over him; he could never be a failure provided all he tried to be was what he should be. He faced his former Marshal's widow, nodding his head.

"I name you Marshal of the North, Eruanne." He raised his hand in the face of Ferrox's protests and the Gryphoness' exclamation of surprise. "Enough! Prepare the army for consolidation and withdrawal – we march in a week with whatever we can."

oOo

Drax slunk through the ruined courtyard of the Silver Citadel, past the melting walls and the ever-present drip-drip-drip of failing icicles. Spring was knocking at the door of Winter, eager like an actor waiting in the wings. But Winter still demanded to complete her swansong – there was more of that act left than Spring suspected.

He ducked under the fallen lintel, propped up on one side by a tumbled column. At a casual glance, this dark space – scarcely two feet high at its highest point – would have been overlooked. It couldn't lead anywhere – underneath it were the very foundations of the castle, frozen soil and earth not even Summer could warm.

Drax wormed his way under the stone, slinking down through the narrow, partially-collapsed tunnel and shaking the dirt and snow off his fur as he came out into a solidly appointed room, its ceiling arched and vaulted like a church, the dungeons of the castle. He sniffed deeply, inhaling the comforting scents of his packmates – Nicodemus and the rest strong and sharp, together with the odd, rippling, golden scent of Queen Lucy. Underneath them all, their colors faded but still visible, were Rapine and Edmund and the rest. He gave a little howling yip-yip and moved further into the dimly-lit caverns.

The dungeons of the Witch's Castle had gone down deep, fathoms and fathoms of room and corridor and oubliette. Here were the cells where prisoners had been tormented, the foundries and workshops, the armories and smithies – and the wolf pens.

Drax smiled as he remembered the great struggle a year before – the wolf-war that had driven those still loyal to the Witch from the Silver Citadel, the over- and underground battles pitting lupine against lupine with Edmund at their head. The battles in the Western Wild and the Lantern Waste, the perpetual war of the dozens and dozens of wolves who owed loyalty to the Witch, to Narnia, to Edmund, or perhaps none but their packs.

Now, these dungeons were silent – the final secret bolt-hole of the Lantern Waste, their castle, keep and refuge. None save the wolves came here, few knew of them. Outside, in tents and barracks erected in the ruins of the Citadel, the rest of the armies of the West were stationed. But here, in this warm, friendly half-light, the wolves still dwelt.

Drax turned a final corner, the walls opening out into a large room – holes in the floor marked where posts for fencing had divided the room into individual pens, but now the room was open and free. At one end, a pile of bedding – rags and clean straw, blankets and captured tunics – was collected. Drax saw his Queen and his commander in conference with a few other wolves, but his yellow eyes were drawn to the huddle of dark fur cuddled in the bedding at the end. He padded towards it noiselessly, but a lupine face detached itself from the mass and faced him.

The wolf who looked at him was female, smaller than he was although with powerful shoulders and strong jaws. Her fur was darker than most and her eyes were as blue as the High King's. Around her, pups – their eyes still closed and uncomprehending – nevertheless felt the presence of their father and whined and moved closer to his warmth. The she-wolf nuzzled her muzzle along Drax's, a keening-whine deep in her throat, her blue-eyes gazing up at him with an imploring, grateful gaze.

He arched his neck and his throat convulsed, the muscles of his stomach and guts flexing and a mass of semi-digested meat sliding from his mouth. She bent her head and swallowed it, shifting her legs to let her pups get better access as they suckled. She ran her face alongside his again, sniffing and snuffling at him, smelling the unfamiliar scents of the east on him.

"Captain?" asked the Marshal, breaking the moment, "What news from the Cair?" Reluctantly, Drax turned from his wife and padded over to his commander and Queen. He bowed before them.

As he recounted the previous day's war-council at the Cair and the danger that pressed on Narnia and the Monarch-in-Residence, he reflected that this place was silent and quiet. In another room would be the youngsters – the wolf cubs that they had rescued from the Witch a year before; too-old to be suckled, but too-young to fight. His lovely wife Cyan – and Aslan-forbid anyone would dare call her "Puppy-Blue" to her face – was weaning this year's pups, and a few of the pack had volunteered to guard Queen Lucy, but for the most part the wolves were in the Lone Islands with the Alpha.

Privately, he wondered if it might not always be like this from now on. He wondered, briefly, if he had not chosen the wrong side.

But then Cyan – wonderful, brilliant Cyan, a mature wolf who had by some quirk of fate kept her juvenile coloring to adulthood, the exotic beauty of the Western Wild who had saved him – slunk over and ran her head along his flank. He remembered the days when this cavern was packed with wolves – snarling brutes kept in fear of whips and brands, their Alpha Maugrim ruling by fear because he himself feared, Varden constantly vying for his master's position and life.

_No,_ he thought, _this is the right side. I don't know if we'll win, but I know – if it comes to that – I have picked the right place to lose._

Queen Lucy was plucking at his collar, unfastening the letter from her sister and unfolding it with chubby fingers, bitten by cold and harsh living. The young Queen – scarcely a whelped pup even by human standards, reflected Drax – had begun her sojourn in the Lantern Waste lightly, one might even say skittishly – enjoying the rugged and exciting life they were forced to lead. She had reveled in the gulped meals and a diet that consisted mostly of fresh-killed meat, a war fought with surprise and counter-ambush, of constantly shifting battle-lines and nights without sleep or fire or shelter.

After a week or so, this had begun to pall – the unending reality of this was too much for her. She was so young, and had never had the harsh schooling in the real world her brother – in truth, not _so much_ older than she – had experienced. The fact this could not be avoided, the fact it was not a holiday of adventure from which one could return to the luxury of the Cair, had begun to wear at her.

Still, she was a Queen of Narnia and – with strength and determination and an unshakable faith in the Lion – she had pushed through this and come out the other side. The hardship was not a game any more, but neither was it the be all and end all. There were meals taken around fires, snatched dances and howled songs in clearings, a camaraderie that few – if any – soldiers in Narnia could match. There was a firm assurance in Lucy's face – leaner and harder than it had been a month and a half before and with a cleft of concentration between her brows – that had not been there prior to the Waste. She finished the letter and turned to Nicodemus.

"Prepare the armies for departure," she ordered crisply. The Marshal rolled his yellow eyes.

"Your Majesty," he said with infinite patience, "We cannot simply set out immediately and – even if we could – it is a march of a week or more to the Cair." Lucy smiled sweetly – she was naive enough to think that Nicodemus' objections were purely practical.

"I know," she said evenly, "that's why I didn't say we leave today. Start getting the army ready to move. If we take the wolves, the Centaurs and the cats we can move much faster than we would if we took the Fauns and the Dryads. It's less than a week for wolves, isn't it?" she asked Drax. The Captain nodded, human-loyalty and pack-allegiance beginning to jar.

"It is, your Majesty," he managed, "Running at full-pelt, it is less than a day – but if we are marching as an army and wish to arrive fresh enough to fight it is at least three days, probably more. But you must understand that . . ."

"But less than a week!" exclaimed Lucy, perhaps willfully ignoring Drax and turning to Nicodemus with a joyful grin. "See? We can be at the Cair _within_ a week if we move swiftly." Nicodemus shook his head.

"Your majesty, you are asking us to abandon the _Lantern Waste_." Echoes of the argument he had had with Edmund came washing back over him. He suspected that he would be able to dictate to this puppy – a mere cub who her own brother had ordered to listen to him and who, so far, had proved tractable when it came to military matters – what would be done. "We have already lost much territory – from Caldron Pool to the Lantern is in the hands of the People of the Toadstools and the Witch's wolves. Our forces are committed to a punitive assault, a retaliatory strike to take these lands back."

"Then uncommit them," Lucy said with a simple grin. Nicodemus made to expostulate and explain this was impossible. "We shall leave the Fauns and Dryads to defend the Western March, but the only people in the Lantern Waste are the soldiers. If they are not there, then there's nothing to abandon." She smiled sweetly again.

Gradually, it dawned on Nicodemus she thought of the land as people – that, despite the fact she was often here, it was not to walk through the clearing of the stumps of the Trees, or to stand in the light of the Lantern; it was to visit the people of the Western March. She didn't see it the way he saw it, the way it should be seen. The very land was _sacred_. He tried a different tack.

"Your Majesty," he pleaded, "I recognize your desire to defend your family and your people – but what of ours?" He gestured with his head at the helpless, utterly dependent pups lying in the nest. "If we do not defend the Lantern Waste, then we cannot hold the Silver Citadel – the pups will be killed when the Citadel falls."

"Not if they are not here," growled Cyan. "We can fall back to the Beaversdam encampment – Queen Lucy is right, Marshal," she continued before Nicodemus could interrupt her. "We have lost the Lantern Waste – we no longer hold it, we _contest_ one tenth of it at best. Our forces can be better spent elsewhere – breaking the siege of Cair Paravel, for one!" Nicodemus growled angrily. "Even you, Marshal, must accept that we have lost – for now, at least." Cyan turned to Lucy. "Your Highness, I beg permission to begin moving my pups now together with last year's whelps – they are capable of defending the encampment, but not fighting in the wars."

Lucy smiled as if her permission were the most natural thing in the world. "Granted, Cyan," she said. The blue-eyed wolf bowed and made to move away.

"You should stay at the encampment," her husband said. She turned and shook her head.

"No," she said, "Queen Lucy's Fauns and Dryads are defending our home – the least I can do is defend theirs." She caught sight of Nicodemus' face, drawn and haggard in the dim light. "The Marshal will remain in the Waste, I am sure." The great gray wolf started as if roused from sleep.

"I am the Marshal of the West," he growled softly, "but first and foremost I am a soldier of Narnia and a servant of King Edmund the Just. I promised him that I would guard his sister, with my life if necessary – I go where she goes until such time as he releases me from that obligation." He sighed deeply.

"I shall begin withdrawing from lands we have died to secure."


	38. The End of Innocence

**Chapter Thirty-Eight : The End of Innocence**

Susan's decision to wind the Horn had not been taken lightly. When Peter drew Rhindon it was with a casual ease that was terrible to see – and, oftentimes, it had been more of an effort to make him sheath it. Lucy would have healed the world if she could, yet she knew that every drop of the Fire-flower Cordial was precious and should only be used in the direst of situations.

Of course, she had used nearly a third of it after the Battle of Beruna saving the lives of those in Peter's army that could be saved . . . now Susan came to think of it, _had _any of the Narnians died at the Battle of Beruna? Certainly, someone should have done – and certainly they _must_ have done. But she couldn't remember seeing a single body – she realized with a start as she knelt in the cold darkness of pre-dawn in her chamber that Aslan must have shielded them all from it.

Or, at the very least, shielded her and Lucy from it. She knew, better than anyone else now, the horror of war. She had come through it unbloodied but bowed, forever changed by her experiences.

Was this why she and Lucy had been given a finite supply of their gifts by Aslan? The Fire-flower Cordial would one day run out and she herself had shot the last arrow from her gifted sheaf that very morning.

She had winded the Horn once before – when that wolf snapped and ravened at her feet as she dangled from the tree, barely conscious and on the verge of fainting. And then her brother had swept in – as pale as her and perhaps more afraid – and his life had never been the same again.

He'd felt exactly what she had, hadn't he?

She looked at the edge of her golden sword – seeing the notches and dents in the razor-sharp edge where it had struck bone and steel. She spun the weapon in her hand and ran the edge of the blade through the lamplight. It caught it, sparkling and fracturing like stars rolling down a frozen river. Rhindon never chipped, never seemed to need sharpening.

Peter had never had a single doubt in his life.

Susan reached for the Horn at her hip, her fingers lingering above it and then shying away at the last possible moment. There was a fear in her heart that the magic of her Gifts was finite, that there would come a time when they were used up. Like arrows from a quiver or Cordial from a phial, there would come a time when she would wind the Horn and nothing would happen.

What help would come this time? She had sent letters to all the allies she had and we within range of aiding her. Aslan did not _need_ to be called.

But this was not about what he _needed_, she realized with a light-headed clarity she scarcely recognized, this was about what she was told to do. She had been given the Horn to call for aid – why had she been given such a thing if not to use it?

She reversed the blade again, leaning her forearms on the quillons, imagining Peter and Edmund and even Lucy doing just the same thing at the same time – she knew pre-dawn rituals were an inevitable habit of the brothers when they were at war, and Lucy _would_ be copying her eldest brother – and closed her eyes and tried to center herself.

Was the Horn truly _enchanted_? She had blown it once and Peter had _heard_ it. Was the Fire-flower Cordial really _magic_ – or was the juice of the berry merely a potent healing elixir? Perhaps Rhindon was just a sword forged by a master-smith.

She shook her head – it didn't matter. This wasn't about enchantments and magic – when she lived in a world where trees walked and animals talked and her General was a Centaur, enchanted ceased to mean anything. Her _breakfast_ was magical because it was prepared by Fauns and Dryads. The question wasn't, _Is this a miracle?_ but rather, _What does it mean?_

What was she supposed to do here? She had a Horn that would summon aid – mundane or magical, it was of no consequence. Why was she given this if _not_ to call for aid?

_I have brought my people home. I have done all I can. I have called for all the aid I think will come. Blowing the Horn is pointless – if there is any more aid to be had, then Aslan would call it himself. To suggest that the protection of the country he died to save depends on what I do or do not do is madness._

But the simple truth of the matter eluded Susan's conscious mind – aid would only come if the Horn was blown, and aid _would_ come, because the woman who was Susan Pevensie could no more neglect her duty to obey than she could fly in the air.

"I am a creature of free-will," she said aloud to herself as she stood and sheathed her sword, taking the Horn in her hand as she walked towards the highest tower of the Cair, dawn blushing over the sea. "And I choose to obey. Behold the handmaid of the Lion."

oOo

Hylonome started awake as dawn washed over the island of Felimath. The last few days – since the devastating ambush and strike against the village – had been an enjoyable romp over the island. She had organized search parties to scour the ground, hunting out any of the Governor's forces that might remain there and meeting with the shepherds and carrying the message of salvation to them.

After spending – on Rumpledore's orders – the first day after the battle off her hooves to give her ankle and arm a chance to heal, she had lead the fastest of the parties herself, Publius jogging alongside her, his wind-purpled cheeks puffing with the effort. She had _tried_ to be a good Centauride and not shout at the shepherds when they called her "Monster", but it was _very_ hard not to.

Her mind was foggy, blurred with horsey dreams and inhuman desires. She lifted her torso from the dewy grass, pushing the blanket off her and rolled to her hooves. What had woken her? The dawn light was not yet bright enough to do so.

A memory of what had woken her twitched at her ears – a leaping, desperate musical tone, a horn winded at the very edge of awareness, distant and yet crystal clear. She looked around her, expecting to see her command starting awake and responding to what she thought was the raised alarum. But everyone was fast asleep.

Except the Lion.

He stood on the top of the little rise just to the east, the rising sun haloing him and making his mane into a corona of flaming gold around the eclipse of his massive body, larger than she remembered it. With a whinny of joy, Hylonome cantered over to him and drummed her hooves.

"Aslan!" she cried joyfully, "It's you! It's really you!" She danced and pranced around his immobile form, wanting him to romp around with her like he had before, a thunderstorm of golden-fur. "I got my first command, and I'm a Knight of the Table and . . ." She paused, for the Lion was deadly still, his eyes patient and a little sad, waiting for her to finish. Her voice trailed off.

"I know, little one," he rumbled, "you have done just as well as I knew you would." Hylonome stilled herself, waiting for him to speak. Somehow, she knew that the events of the crusade had _truly_ changed her from the flighty foal she had been to the mature mare she now was. "But danger presses on Narnia," continued Aslan, "Cair Paravel is under siege and will fall unless help comes to her." Hylonome gulped and her horror washed over her face.

"But, General Oreius – and Queen Susan – are there!" she exclaimed. And then her brows drew together in consternation and her little mobile ears flickered and twitched. "But . . . but, Aslan, how am I supposed to help them? I mean, I want to, but I'm weeks from Narnia and I . . ." Her voice trailed off as the Lion growled.

"Little one," the said with the very edge of a snarl, "what are you?" She put her head on one side and considered.

"A messenger?" she said uncertainly.

"And what, then, do I expect you to do?" growled the Lion. Despite her current situation, Hylonome did what she always did when she was asked questions she did not know the answer to – she closed her eyes and imagined herself romping again with Aslan. The sensation was different – no less joyful, but not as light and as free as before. Like the shift from cotton and linen to leather and mail, the change from fruit cordials to heavy wines, the moment when the stick of green willow was set aside for the elegance of a steel blade, something had grown and altered within her experience and perception. She didn't feel like she was playing on the seashore with him any more – she felt like she was swimming out to unplumbed depths with his paws under her shoulders and girth.

"I'm . . . supposed to tell King Edmund?" she asked hesitantly. A seemingly-satisfied purr rumbled from his cavernous chest and he bent his head and licked her forehead, a warm delicious smell enveloping her. She swayed slightly, closing her eyes.

When she opened them, she was alone, with just huge footprints pressed into the soft turf in front of her. She turned, twisting her athletic torso around. The rest of the Narnians and the few shepherds with them were still asleep, the odd sheep visible on the distant slopes beginning to wake and crop the grass. She span around and cantered over to Quagloom, shaking the Marshwiggle awake.

"What!" he grunted, his muddy-complexioned face started out of sleep, "Are we under attack? It is a storm? Is King Edmund dead?"

"No," said Hylonome briskly, "Cair Paravel is under siege." She had a moment of brief satisfaction seeing the Marshwiggle outdone in his predictions of disaster by the actuality. It was probably only sleep that made him ask the question that no 'Wiggle would normally ask;

"Are you sure?" She nodded.

"Aslan was just here and told me this." For a second, the Marshwiggle looked at her carefully, and then nodded. For all the Marshwiggles' dour grimness and tendency towards pessimism, there were few in Narnia with such a devotion to the simplicity of Aslan's mission for them. To a 'Wiggle – although they were convinced it was _bound_ to end in failure and disaster and death or worse – carrying out Aslan's wishes were a given. Their pessimism was geared towards the _personal_ – they were convinced that it wouldn't be to _their_ liking. Their whole idea of "putting a brave face on it" was really just their way of making their desires conform to the world rather than the other way around. It was, perhaps, simply a recognition of quite how far everyone had to go in order to accept what was best for the world was perhaps not best for them. There were, truth be told, very few _unhappy_ Marshwiggles. They found a contentment in their simple lives – a few helpings of eel-pie, a pipe or two of muddy tobacco and the chance to do the will of Aslan and they were happy.

"I must inform King Edmund immediately," said Hylonome. Quagloom nodded again.

"Ten to one you'll be too late," he moaned, getting to his webbed feet like a spider unfolding itself after a fall, "but no harm in trying I suppose. King Edmund is probably dead or captured by now – most likely it's just us few left on this island who are alive. I don't think it's a very salubrious climate here, do you? Bound to lead to rheumatics and brown-chitis and whatnot. And with the Cair under siege, why, that means the whole of Narnia is probably taken!" He rubbed his big frog-like hands together with a ghastly cheerfulness.

"Yes, well," said Hylonome, trying to not let her worries that he might very well be right show on her face. "On the off-chance that this has _not_ happened, can you get the troops over to Narrowhaven? I'll get over to Doorn immediately." The Marshwiggle nodded, and then his gulp-mouthed smile widened, threatening to crack his face like a dry riverbed.

"I told you we'd need those boats," he gloated. "I can fish 'em out, but it'll take time. How are you planning to get over there without them?" Hylonome snorted and tossed her mane, fixing him with a flat-eyed stare.

"Swim," she said shortly.

oOo

Elizabeth yawned as she walked down the grand staircase of the Governor's mansion of Narrowhaven, trying to get oxygen into lungs starved of it by a night all-but untroubled by slumber. Rapine – appointed Marshal of the Lone Islands by the new Governor and with the blessing (although not without regret) of the King – padded alongside her, having slept curled at the foot of her bed for the past two nights.

Rapine had been appointed Marshal at the Liberation Day party, a celebration which had seen Magdala named Countess of Avra and the position of Admiral of Narnia bestowed on Pearl. Somehow, Michael and the troops (whom Elizabeth was _certain_ he had given leave until noon the next day) had managed to clear the courtyard of corpses in a few short hours. The wine had flowed and the music had rung long into the night, but the Warlord had been conspicuous by his absence. Or, rather, Elizabeth had not noticed him – and had not noticed he wasn't there either.

She was beginning to realize she did that – she only paid attention to him when she needed him, and she began to hate herself for that. He was her _friend_ – he'd saved her life more than once and although he could be harsh and unyielding and brusque, he was kind . . . well, no – _kind_ was not the word for it. Just, perhaps; decent, humane. She was well-aware of the fact that he got the best out of his soldiers by simply doing what they did but ten times better, and she began to realize that his moral guidance was exactly the same. For the Warlord, everything was war, of one sort or another.

The next morning had – both she and Edmund (and, if the truth be told, the majority of the Narnians and Islanders) assumed – dawned bright and clear, for when they did awake at mid-morning from stupors that were half-hangover and half-exhaustion it was to a clear sky to the north, with few if any clouds scudding over the scrubbed blue. To the south a great cloud of smoke was rising – a vast pyre built on the Warlord's orders the night before, cremating the bodies of the Monsters. The perpetual spiral winds of the Bight of Calormen cyclone whipped from the north and bent the column of greasy smoke away from the city, curving through the flat sky like cream in coffee.

That afternoon had been sombre – the bodies of the Narnians and the human soldiers of the Governor who had been killed in the assault on Narrowhaven, and there were many of them, were interred in a grave on the hillside to the east of the city. Over two hundred soldiers – the majority the human servants of the Governor, but many Narnians who should have lived long years merrily in the cool woods of their homeland – were lain to rest in an old quarry, a vast cairn built over their corpses from the shattered remains of the walls. As the surviving Narnians and the newly-freed Islanders carried the stones cut into manageable chunks by Dwarfish tools, Edmund and the Lantern Waste elite – the King sombre in black silk and purple linen – lead the funeral dirge in mournful howls that sent shivers down the spine.

Edmund had spoken briefly over the cairn - his voice weary and weak with the exertions of the last few days – Elizabeth standing beside him, the crimson cloak of the Governor of the Lone Islands being lifted from the black velvet she was wearing underneath it by the perpetual, scouring wind. In silence, Narnians and Islanders alike drifted away into the night, leaving Michael standing guard alone by the grave until full darkness came and none could see where he went.

Elizabeth – despite the comforting presence of Rapine, who had even slunk into her very bed when her nocturnal twitching got too much – had not slept well and so it was with relief that she woke with the dawn and made her way downstairs, meeting with the commanders for the military planning session arranged in the great hall.

As she and Rapine walked through the doorway, being greeted with deferential howls from the two wolves standing like door posts to either side, the figures grouped around the large table in the center looked up. The room was high, with pillared walls supported by great carved columns between frescoed panels. A painted ceiling – a symbolic image of Jadis bringing the Everwinter to Narnia – gazed down on the marble floor below. Everything that was not painted was carved or gilded, and where there was an alcove there was a statue of Jadis or the Governor. Perversely, Elizabeth was reminded of old newsreel footage of the Nazi high command inspecting Les Invalides or the Athens Acropolis – military men in their finery walking through great halls of awesome beauty, coming as conquistadors and crusaders. _Did Alexander and Ptolemy stand like this in Babylon?_ she wondered.

But here it was reversed – for although it was military men coming to a place of fantastic beauty, they themselves were of a civilization older and more noble than the one they had lain low. They were not the invading barbarians, but rather were the true bastions of nobility and power. They were not dwarfed by the monuments around them, as those in Paris or Greece were, but rather simply counterpointed its futile declaration of strength with their own presence.

For there was a terrible beauty in the figures gathered around the table – Michael, massive and immobile in his well-serviced but war-worn armor; Hedera, wearing a body grown less than three days before, looking as young as Spring but with eyes as old as Autumn and cold as Winter; Tullibardine and the other animals, seen here, amid the weak and flimsy trappings of human civilization, with their wildness made even more stark.

Even Elizabeth – tall and statuesque, dressed in the armor of a Queen and the cloak of a Governor – assumed an almost elemental presence. Marshal Rapine padded at her heels, his massive shoulders moving with casual power and his yellow eyes gleaming.

Physically, Edmund was perhaps the least imposing of the figures there – dressed in a simple gray tunic and breeches, the only sign of his rank and title was the thin golden circlet nestling amid the dark curls and his ornate amber and blue-steel sword – returned to him from the treasure rooms of the Governor – resting on his hip. Bruises and scars still marked his flesh, his lips still thick and split and one eye puffed black and blue. But there was something else about him – something that shone from his eyes, no, from every pore of his body – that caught Elizabeth's eyes and made her breath catch in her throat.

"Governor, Marshal," nodded Edmund, "Thank you for joining us. Breakfast will be served an hour after dawn – no-one eats until we have a strategy." There was a ripple of laughter around the table as Elizabeth stepped forward and looked at what was on it, Rapine placing his paws on the top and peering like a dog seeking scraps.

On the table was a map of a portion of the north shore of Doorn – Narrowhaven rested in one corner and in the center was marked a fortress placed in a clearing. Flowing around and between them were little rivers and valleys and small mountains, forests lying in their lowlands like fog. Elizabeth glanced around for a scale – there was none. She tapped the center of the map. "What's that?" she asked.

"About two and a half miles to the west." Michael answered the question she had wanted to ask, not the one she had. "It's the fortress the former Governor has fled to – a powerful military fastness in the center of Doorn." He swept the map off the table and unrolled another, drawn with charcoal on parchment and with rain- and snow marks marring its surface. "As you can see on this larger scale map, it is well-fortified – high in the central mountains, with excellent lines of sight over the approaches to the castle." He looked up from the table at Edmund, "I think this was built by King Gale, sire – certainly, the scouts said it looked Narnian." Edmund nodded.

"Well, a King of Narnia may have built it," said Edmund decisively, "but a King of Narnia is certainly going to tear it down. What are we facing?" Michael snapped to attention, answering the important – but unasked – question, as was his wont.

"Your majesty, the Narnian forces number less than two hundreds – few are uninjured and many of them are seriously hurt." He turned to Elizabeth, "Governor?" She started and then, realizing what he was asking, gestured at Rapine.

"My Marshal is better equipped to answer that question, Warlord," she stammered. Rapine twitched his head upwards as he replied.

"All told, we have some three hundred swords – but in the main these are untrained and unskilled, although their zeal is unquestioned." He paused, "Many of those who are the most skilled are former soldiers of Jadis – although it sorts ill for wolf who has lead the Lantern Waste elite to say this, I do not know how well we can rely on them." Edmund nodded judiciously. "If needed, I could broaden my recruitment strategies – but this would mean including those who have seen too many Winters, or too few." Edmund shook his head.

"As for our foes," said Michael, "they are not so numerous – our best estimate, based on casualties and the reports of scouts, is some two hundred – with maybe three score of those are Minotaurs and Ogres. The rest are Black Dwarfs and humans in the main – perhaps a few Harpies."

"The fortress?" asked Edmund. Michael glanced at Brocklewine, who lifted a model from under the table – a representation of the castle they were planning to assault made of trimmed lengths of wood and bits of chopped log skewered together with pins and wooden wedges. The Dwarf placed the model in the center of the table and Michael began to gesture at it, Hedera occasionally interrupting and offering her eye-witness insights.

Elizabeth didn't really listen – she wasn't a strategist. She could fight, certainly, but the art and planning of war wasn't something Susan had managed to teach her during their conversation. All she could do was stare at the little model of the castle – a wonderful little model of a fort that a grandfather might have made for his grandson to play knights and dragons with old lead toy soldiers on – and watch the great warlords of Narnia gaze down on it, seeing not wood and bark, but stone and iron and enemies. She smiled, it was true – people _did_ do it like that! Just like they did in the movies.

She stopped and realized that she had forgotten where she was – she herself was _in_ something as unreal as any movie. The pain in her body, the exhaustion, the deaths of those under her command and the funeral last night had almost hidden that. She had a vision of Narnia that was split in two – half-based on the sanitized version of the books, half on her own experience in this world. One was bloody and hard and terrible, and the other was somehow . . . lacking?

Try as she might, should could not recall piles of corpses and logistics and walking-wounded in the battles in the books. She tried to remember if the fighting had sounded so hard, if the enemies had been so terrible. Perhaps, she wondered, if you were a child . . .

She started as iron-shod hooves clattered through the doorway, spinning with the rest of the commanders to face the dripping Centauride cantering under the archway. "Hylonome?" asked Edmund, incredulous, "Whatever are you doing here?"

"Your majesty, Lady Elizabeth, sirs," she panted, bobbing her head to them all like a bird collecting seeds, "I swam the straits to get here – Quagloom said that it was ten to one that there were currents and eddies and whatnot and if there weren't there would be sharks and squid and sea serpents, or maybe a tidal wave, but I came anyway."

"And you would be most welcome, Lady," said Edmund silverly, "with your customary skill you have come just in time for breakfast – but for the fact you were supposed to remain on Felimath to command the forces there." Hylonome blushed and dipped her head.

"Sire, I realize that I have disobeyed orders and lay myself open before your fullest censure, but I beg leave to report." Edmund gestured at her to continue. "Sire, Aslan has appeared on Felimath." The heads of the commanders snapped up and looks of joy spread over their faces, looks of joy that were swiftly swept away by her next utterance. "He says that Cair Paravel is under siege and will fall unless aid comes to her."

Edmund's face assumed a slack-jawed expression of shock and horror – for a second, he looked to be utterly at a loss. "Susan . . ." his lips articulated silently. And then he turned to the Centauride. "That's it? He didn't say any more?" She shook her head.

"No, your majesty," she said. Edmund nodded and turned back to his commanders, his mind immediately made up.

"We are agreed we act on this?" he asked. All of them nodded as Edmund turned back to Hylonome and snapped his fingers. "Get me Admiral Pearl in here now." She bowed and was gone in a clatter of hooves. "Michael, your assessment of this fortress?" The Warlord's voice was grim.

"It is not impregnable, but it cannot be taken in less than a week once the siege begins – and there are no siege engines on the island."

"Of course not," said Tullibardine, "an island-nation has no need of them – they will be being besieged, not doing the besieging." Edmund nodded.

"So a week after we construct siege engines?" he asked. His commanders agreed and he shook his head. "Too long – the Cair may have fallen by then."

"Sire," said Hedera's purring voice, "the Cair will have fallen by the time we get there – we can offer no aid. Narnia is on her own." Edmund glared into the Dryad's smile – avuncular, explaining, slightly patronizing. "We are several weeks from Narnia, sire," she said.

"Three," said Pearl, running into the room followed by Hylonome, "unless a real squall blows up. There be ships out there i' the harbor an' me crew can sail 'em – but 'tis three weeks at the very least to the Cair wi' these winds." Hedera returned Edmund's stare.

"We cannot make it, sire," she purred.

"Damn you, Dryad!" Edmund snapped. "We will _try_!" Hedera was exasperated.

"Sire, listen to reason – the siege will take two weeks at the very least, another three to return to Narnia . . ." Elizabeth interrupted, stamping on the Dryad's words, thinking that simple _action_ might still win the day.

"Edmund, take your troops and go – I have sufficient men to lay siege to the fortress." He shook his head.

"No, Elizabeth – you do not. You have the numbers, but not the skill. You would fall." He saw the look of hurt on her face and a spasm passed over his. "Forgive me," he said, laying his hand on her arm, "but I speak the truth. I cannot risk leaving the Lone Islands in the state they were before this crusade began. I _will_ finish what I started."

"It is the fortress that is the problem," said Brocklewine. "We could bury them in the field – we have the numbers and the skill to do that. Even with their greater knowledge of the terrain, our victory would be assured."

"Yes," snarled Hedera, "so how about we just go knock on their door and ask if they wouldn't be so nice as to meet us in open and honorable battle this afternoon? I'm free – how about the rest of you?" Brocklewine snorted and turned away from her sarcasm. Edmund raised a hand for silence.

"We march on the fortress as soon as we are able," he said decisively, the monarchical tone of his voice plain but perhaps misused. "It is possible they will make a sortie and face us."

"They will be fools if they do, sire," said Rapine doubtfully. Edmund sighed and nodded – this had all happened too _fast_. He was being rushed – needing to accomplish what would take a fortnight in a day, and even then arriving weeks too late. He knew the resources of the Cair – two weeks of supplies at most. There was no way his forces could make it back to Narnia in time – yet he still knew he had to try.

"I know – and that is what I am hoping." Hedera snorted in derision.

"The great King Edmund, the strategist of Narnia, relying on his opponent's stupidity?" She laughed, "I never thought I'd see the day."

Edmund span to face her. "And what do you suggest, Dryad?" he snapped, "What is your brilliant strategy in this regard?" Hedera's face assumed a look of blank incomprehension that he could be so stupid.

"Build siege engines, lay siege to the castle. We _cannot_ be at Narnia before the Cair either falls or the siege is lifted – you know this, sire! If we march to open battle we will break like water against the walls of that fortress – you will throw away the lives of my people to defend your family!"

Edmund swallowed, his eyes closed, anger working in his face. "They are not your people, Dryad – they are mine. And I will throw no lives away."

"Then wait!" cried Hedera, "This assault is folly!"

"No," said Edmund quietly, his calm confidence beginning to return. "No – why would Aslan appear on Felimath unless we were supposed to act on what he said?" _But is that action supposed to be what I am doing?_ a quiet voice asked, _and would I know if it were not? Am I so beloved of Aslan that whatever I do – provided I do it with true heart and with faith in him – is his will?_ "Trust in him, and all will end as it should." He paused. "Have a little _faith_, Hedera." The Dryad looked around the table, seeing the trusting looks on the commanders, and shook her head in amazement.

"I have faith in Aslan, sire." The King felt the omission and he swept the room with his gaze, looking over the commanders he would be relying on in the forthcoming battle that might see the deaths of them all. What he saw did not surprise him, but still humbled him.

One face was missing. "Where's Hylonome?" he asked.


	39. Orthopraxy

**Chapter Thirty-Nine : Orthopraxy**

Hylonome galloped through the forests of Doorn, her hooves churning the morass of the previous Autumn's leaves and this Winter's ice into a slushy crumbled mess. Naked branches whipped at her face, lashing wounds she could not remember receiving and tugging at her piebald hair. Iron shoes slipped on the compressed slime and she skidded, pushing a long arm against a rimed tree trunk to save herself from falling.

A good bowshot from the walls of Narrowhaven, the island of Doorn gave way to dark forests – pine in the main, but with enough deciduous woodland there to carpet the floor with softer muck than needles. Thick forests, twisted and tangled where they were not logged back into plantations to produce lumber for sale to Terebinthia and Galma – not ideal galloping terrain at all. Hard to run in, harder to navigate.

Hylonome was many things – many of them she did not know – but, first and foremost, after loyal and devoted and guileless, she was a scout and messenger. A glance at the map had told her everything she needed to know; where the fastness the former Governor had fled to was. A few moments hearing the debate in the war council had settled in her mind what she had to do.

She really wasn't _thinking_ about it – she had realized, since Aslan had appeared on Felimath that morning, that all the thinking in the world wouldn't change what one had to do. One could find justifications – or excuses – but even without them the right thing to do was still the right thing. There was always something to do and – if you were quiet and still enough in your heart – it was pretty obvious what it had to be.

She had taken a route which the armies wouldn't, not along the road carved out of the woods, but through the tangled forest itself, ducking under trees and leaping over fallen logs. It was shorter than the road, but perhaps – with the impediments in her path – no quicker. Yet it would bring her where she wanted to be – as close to the castle as could be, far from hope, alone and unprotected.

It wasn't a surprise when the spear took her through the haunch, but it still made her shy and start, rearing backwards and crashing into the putrid leaf mold of the forest floor.

oOo

Edmund tightened the buckles of his leather armor – his suit of plate and mail had been ruined by Gallowgore's blows – and flexed his bruised shoulders under the lamed pauldrons. The armor was boiled leather, cured to wood-brown with curving, looping designs branded into it – leaping wolves and windswept trees, winding rivers and tributaries. Rows of tassels, strung with complex patterns in Western Wild amber beads, hung in descending chevrons from his plastron and backplate, and more fringes hung from his arms. He flexed creaking fingers inside buckskin gloves, taken from animals he had hunted and skinned himself.

This was his suit of armor as Lord of the Western Wild, a title he used rarely and not all of his siblings completely understood. Only Susan – who had sewn the detail of the armor – had been told the full tale. To Elizabeth, it was meaningless; but even she noticed the difference between Edmund and the Lantern Waste elite was less pronounced when he wore that armor, and that the wolves' snap to attention was less human and more lupine than ever.

"Saddle up!" cried Michael, swinging himself into the saddle of one of the horses. Edmund and Elizabeth followed suit as others – Magdala among them – also mounted. There were few horses in the city and fewer still among Rapine's troops who were accomplished riders – the Marshal had given up on the idea of creating a cavalry force. Not only was it impossible, but cavalry would most likely be ineffectual in the siege they were marching to.

The Narnian forces drew up behind their mounted commanders in disciplined ranks, the three-hundred Islanders forming into a more ragged block. Those Narnians who had traveled with the false-Jadis, seconded to her at least temporarily, took the role of sergeants and captains, Rapine and Elizabeth at their head.

Edmund had chaffed since Hylonome had vanished, sending adjutants running to fetch his armor and snapping orders at Michael to have the soldiery ready to march _immediately_. The Warlord had obeyed, but the muster did not happen as quickly as Edmund might have liked. He appeared in the courtyard of the city, Faun-armorers still buckling him into his armor, bellowing orders at the top of his lungs. Soldiers ran hither and thither, unused to seeing their King so flustered and without his customary calm.

Rapine's humans – still unsure of their wolfish commander and few of them professional soldiers – had taken longer to get ready, and the lash of Edmund's tongue had been cruel. Even Elizabeth had not been immune – the King had yelled at her, "Get your troops in line, Governor! This is war, not a concert party!"

None of this helped the morale of the army – having to fight a war they never suspected they would need to, having to do so in a hurry for reasons which were not clear but about which the rumors were terrible, seeing their King scared and angry and panicking. A whisper of defeat was already settling on the minds of the army; they had not had enough time to enjoy their victory before a frantic and desperate battle began again.

All in all, it was not the most auspicious start to what would be – one way or another – the final battle of the crusade.

Elizabeth glanced down at the wolf loping alongside her trotting horse and flicked her head towards the head of the column where Edmund was cantering forward, intermittently reining back and impatiently waiting for the rest of the army to catch up. The two of them shifted to a canter and caught up with him.

"Edmund," she said gently, "don't you think you should calm down?" He turned to her with venom in his face, made all the more stark by the mottled bruising and bloodshot eye.

"Calm down?" he hissed, "My sister, my country and my people are going to die, and you think I should calm down?" She didn't say anything, just fixed him with a soft gaze and look of understanding – not just of him and his emotions, but also of the whole situation. With a sigh, he relaxed in the saddle and ran a hand through his dark hair. His horse sensed the mantle of calm that descended on him and its steps lightened.

"You're right," he said resignedly. "I'm just . . . scared," he admitted, clenching his fist in front of his face. "We have come so far and done so much – to fail _here_. To have Narnia fall now . . ." Elizabeth stopped him with a gentle interjection.

"She hasn't fallen yet – did not Aslan say _unless aid comes_?" Edmund shook his head.

"And I fear that Hedera is right – we cannot be there in less than a month. More than likely, she will have fallen by the time we have finished breaking this fortress." Elizabeth smiled at Edmund, a beautiful smile that lit the drab day, realizing there were spiritual things – only now, perhaps – in which she outstripped the King of Narnia.

"Your Majesty," she said, "when did you have to do everything?" He started and gazed at her quizzically. "You may not be able to come, but aid may – have your victories here taught you pride? You thought you were right to undertake this crusade, do you think so still?" Edmund shook his head, unsure of himself.

"I do not know, but . . ." He sighed. "I would feel better if I knew what had happened to Hylonome – where she went." In this moment of worry and panic, when death was but a short ride away, it was touching that Edmund's thoughts were on a single soldier abandoning him. "She went off without my orders, that is treachery – however you slice it." Rapine raised his gold-eyed head to his King.

"She might be a traitor to you, Sire," he said, with a glance at Elizabeth, sharing their conversation in the enemy stronghold a few night's before, "but never to Aslan."

oOo

Hylonome looked up through the mist of blood and graying vision – she had lost a lot of blood – and smiled sweetly and infuriatingly at her captors.

One of them – the one whose nose she had broken with an accurate punch when they ambushed her – snarled in anger and smashed her in the face. He didn't know how to punch effectively, so her bones were safe, but the force of the blow still snapped her head to one side.

She had fought well in the ambush – there was no suggestion she had been doing anything but her utmost. But the spear lodged in her haunch had settled the matter very decisively – she had lost blood, and just lost more as she reared and plunged. Eventually, she was too weak to resist them as they hobbled her, tied her hands and – finally – staunched the bleeding. Blindfolded and shackled, they had lead her into the castle and down into the dungeons.

A few minutes alone in a stinking cell strewn with rotten straw, the oubliette bare but for the eight-foot diameter iron-shod wheel mounted on the wall, and then the barred door had opened and a few well-dressed humans had walked in, together with a brutish and silent Minotaur. One of the humans was obviously the leader – tall, dark, saturnine and with a livid and fresh wound well-sutured over one eye. He was wearing dully-glinting mail and carried – incongruously, where other men might have carried a scepter – a rough iron bar as long as her arm and as thick as her ankle.

He had not wasted time on pleasantries – it was obvious she was a scout and would possess vital information. "What are the Narnians' plans?" he had asked without preamble. She had smiled and received blows for her pains.

"I will ask once more," said the tall human, beating the metal rod meditatively against his palm, "and then I shall take more extreme measures." He grabbed her chin and forced her to face him. "Give me the information I desire and I your death shall be painless. Deny me and your death will be one long scream." One of his servants struck her again for emphasis.

"I won't tell you a thing!" Hylonome snapped defiantly. This was, of course, a flat lie – perhaps the first she had ever told in full cold knowledge of what it was. Perhaps _I won't tell you anything I don't want to_ would have been nearer the truth, but would have given the whole game away. "Aslan watches over me, and you can do nothing to me!"

Briefly, she wondered if this were true – if what was about to happen to her might change her mind. She had always finished what she set out to do in her short life, always maintained her course and always done what she said she would. She wondered if now, now she was alone and with none but herself to keep her on the straight and narrow, she might prove weak enough to have her mind changed. Was she really brave enough to do this? All virtues, she knew, were courage at the testing point.

"Aslan?" sneered the human, "Fat lot of good he'll do you." He menaced her with the heavy piece of metal. "Where's your Aslan now?"

"Just beyond that wheel," she whispered, bowing her head and stifling a tear as the iron bar crashed down onto her beautiful legs with a sickening crunch.

oOo

Edmund reined in his horse – the humans in the column behind him were panting and tired, gasping with unused exertion. "We have to give them chance to rest, sire," said Rapine softly. Edmund nodded – logic told him that an hour's rest would make no difference to the fate of the Cair, but in his heart it was a different matter. He turned to Michael.

"Warlord – what do you suggest?"

There was something different in Michael's face, Elizabeth noticed – a grim, driven quality that had not been there before. Such traits were always evident in his face – they were part and parcel of the man the Warlord was – but now they existed in starker relief. With a start, she realized the new emotion on his sculpted face was desperation – a sense of frantic hurrying seemed to have taken Michael as well as Edmund. What did he know that they – that she – did not? The Warlord's hand clenched and unclenched on the gilded hilt of his magnificent sword.

"The only chance we have of ending this swiftly is a decisive strike against an enemy in the open," he said flatly. "We have to prepare for that; if they do not meet us on the field we will have enough time to begin a siege. I advise forward scouting by the commanders while the army rests. We are half an hour's march from the castle, an hour's rest here will give us time to observe the lay of the land."

Elizabeth suspected that Michael might very well want to assault the fortress himself and alone if the army would not come fast enough behind him. And Elizabeth did not trust what Edmund might do – this was not machismo, not from Michael at least. The nearest she could equate it to was the desperate actions of a man who knows he is going to fail but still holds out the faintest hope that he can prevent whatever terrible disaster is about to occur. Unbidden, the phrase _bitter end_ struck her.

She knew this assault – rushed, hurried, against a prepared position with untrained troops and no siege engines – was doomed to failure. Or, more correctly, never getting out of the starting gate. A calm sense of surety – not of victory, but of _rightness_ – had descended on her. She realized, as she had come to do a number of times over the past few days, these were her Islands. These were _her_ people, and they were enemies of _her_ rule.

The unreality of Narnia stole back into her consciousness – as she had realized when she stood on the deck of the ship shortly before making landfall, this was a legendary world, a world where legends and myths and spirit were given form. And now she was _part_ of that – part of it not as an observer or a participant, but as much a native as any human ever was. She was the Governor of the Lone Islands, making her choice and choices for all those under her. She was no longer just concerned with her own salvation and own actions – not indirectly, at least. Her own actions affected so many more.

Each and every time Aslan showed her what she had to do, she learned it and accepted it – and then he swept that away and changed the stakes. This was perpetually getting _harder_. She had gone from no-one taking responsibility for her, to him doing it, to her having responsibility for her actions but nothing else.

And now? A province of Narnia and perhaps the fate of the country rested on her shoulders. This was, to all intents and purposes, _her_ battle. She said so. Edmund turned to her.

"Very well, you scout with us." His face was flat and grim, realizing this scouting might very well lead to the necessity to simply billet the army for a siege and begin felling trees for the construction of siege engines. All the adrenaline and wire-taut nerves would be for nothing as the battle would settle into a dull grind, a final and rather anti-climatic end to Edmund's glorious crusade.

Elizabeth didn't want that – she wanted the fall of Narrowhaven to have been the final glorious battle, not an awful siege of attrition fought slowly while Narnia was crushed to powder by her foes.

She sighed – what she _wanted_ was irrelevant. She set her heart and tried to make her desires conform to the world as Rapine slunk up next to his mistress. The four of them moved stealthily through the woodlands towards the castle.

oOo

The former Governor of the Lone Islands pressed gently at his livid wound, wincing as pus leaked from between the stitches. Behind him, Hylonome whimpered quietly, spikes of agony sending tears rolling down her cheeks.

"What do you think, my lord?" asked one of his lieutenants. The one-eyed man shrugged.

"She is obviously young – and unintelligent. She is guileless – there is no deceit in her." He snorted. "Her defiance snapped quickly enough when we started paying her some real attention." He wiped blood from the bar in his hands with a dirty rag.

"There is no evidence of a camp to the north, my lord," said another man. The former Governor shrugged.

"Our scouts are few – and the thrice-cursed Narnians are experts in slinking and sneaking and hiding. A decisive strike would be unlike them – and unlike that boy. What she has told us of a camp established in preparation for a siege rings true – we shall strike at them before their camp is fortified."

"And before they begin the construction of siege engines," added the first man. "I concur, your sufficiency – we must attack before tonight; by nightfall their camp will be fortified, and we dare not attack them in the dark." The second man looked puzzled.

"Why not? A night-attack would be good – we could fall on them when they do not expect it." The Governor slapped him across the face to show his displeasure.

"Fool! The Narnian traitors are mostly composed of beasts that talk like Men, they have night-eyes. And there are many of those plant-bitches too – they see well in the dark. A night-attack would be folly – we must attack swiftly." His eyes narrowed. "They will be preoccupied with establishing their camp – send the troops north. We shall find their camp and fall on it decisively and crush them while they do not expect it. Remember; numbers do not win battles – it is treachery that does that."

oOo

"_Why_ are they moving out?" asked Edmund, incredulous, watching from their hiding place amid the tree-line at the edge of the plateau the castle stood on. Elizabeth gave an expansive shrug while offering her private thanks to the Lion. Rapine chuckled deep in his lupine throat, his mottled gray fur hiding him perfectly in the half-shadows of the forest.

"Never count the rings on a Unicorn's horn, sire," he chided as they watched the large column of troops – three-score or more Minotaurs and Ogres and maybe one hundred humans in dark livery – march from the open gate and set off north at the double. Edmund smiled – for the first time in hours – and looked over at Michael.

Alone among the commanders, Michael's expression had not changed – not that much could be seen of it through the undergrowth. "This is what we had hoped, sire – with those numbers marching north, we have a hope of breaching the walls of the fortress."

"What if they are planning to swing east and take Narrowhaven?" asked Elizabeth. "What if they know we are out here assaulting them and they are assaulting us? We could end up playing 'Here we go around the mulberry bush' until the cows come home." Rapine shook his head.

"Other than that breach in the wall, Narrowhaven can hold for a long time," he said. "If needs must, we can fall on their rear – we have faster troops than they. And they do not march to a siege – they have no supplies, not even any ladders." He shook his head again. "No – there is another plan there; although what it is, I do not know." Edmund raised his hand for silence.

"Governor, gentlemen," he said decisively, ending even a suggestion of debate, "what their precise plan is does not concern us now. If we take that fortress we can kill the former Governor – that will be a master-stroke against our enemies."

"He stands trial," said Elizabeth abruptly. Edmund looked at her askance. "He stands trial for his crimes if he is not killed in the fighting. If we take him prisoner, the law will decide his fate."

Edmund smiled gently, beginning to slide down the hill and away from the tree-line. "Lady Elizabeth," said the King of Narnia, "I am the law."


	40. Washed in the Blood of the Lion

**Chapter Forty : Washed in the Blood of the Lion**

The Centauride stirred, wincing as her ruined legs tangled against each other. She coughed and spat blood. "Did I say north?" she asked faintly.

A mailed fist crashed into her cheek, shattering the bone and sending her head crashing into the ground. She raised her head through the swimming blackness and spat out a tooth. "I'm quite sure I said north," she lisped through bleeding lips, "But that was a lie – your armies are going to get caught." The Governor's head turned to face her as one of his lieutenants rolled his eyes at his master's hubris. The one-eyed man grabbed her by the neck and twisted her torso off the floor, crunching the bones in her waist as the horse-half of her remained where it was. She screamed in pain as he stared into her clouding eyes.

"You what, you little bitch?" he snarled, "You lied? You think this defiance'll win you anything? You should have stayed quiet." He nodded to the Minotaur, which grabbed her around the body and lifted her to her feet. Her broken calves twisted abominably as they brushed the floor, and she screamed anew. "So, where is the Narnian camp?"

"I . . . will not tell," she gasped. The Governor nodded, and the monster dropped her with a hideous crackle of bone. She cried out again, subsiding down into a whimpering sobbing as bone pierced the muscles of her shattered legs. He picked up the iron bar again and she closed her eyes and clenched her hands beside her. _Sweet Aslan, let me be strong!_

"I've never wheeled and braided something with six limbs before," he mused, raising the bar on high. "I suppose I'll just have to break each one." He brought the iron rod whistling down.

oOo

The Narnian armies – a riot of color, much of it red-stained by now, against the dark green and white of the mountain Winter – emerged from the road hacked through the forest at a brisk march, weapons shouldered. Edmund and Michael were prepared to establish a perimeter, to scour the walls with bow shots, to cut trees for rams and set the Dryads making vine-ladders to scale the walls.

What they saw changed that.

Marching _back_, southwards this time, was the column of warriors they had seen before. There was an uncertainty to their steps, a suggestion – perhaps – they did not share the confidence they had had in their captains an hour previously.

They were marching in column, weapons shouldered, flanks exposed. They were ripe and ready for the taking – this was _perfect_.

Edmund looked down at Rapine. Rapine looked up at Edmund.

Elizabeth grasped what needed to be done faster than any of the seasoned commanders – she alone did not understand exactly just what a Lion-send this was, nor just how fortunate they were, and so was not shocked into immobility by gleeful wonderment. She drew her sword, reared back on her horse and screamed her battlecry to the heavens;

"For the Lone Islands and Narnia! Into them! _Aslan! Aslan!_"

Her horse's hooves touched earth and she leaped forward, iron shoes trampling the snow into the fissured rock of the plateau, her steed accelerating to a gallop as the Narnian and Lone Island army charged behind her, a ragged mass with Edmund, Michael and the wolves in the van.

Elizabeth hit the unready lines at exactly the same moment as Michael, the Warlord's larger stallion goaded to frenzied effort by his desperation. She hacked off the head of an Ogre, wheeling her horse, stabbing and slicing as she saw him doing the same. His gorgeous sword rose and fell in glorious, glittering arcs, blood and bodies flying from it in an orgy of butchery. Beside her, the wolves leaped into the combat, knocking the humans off their feet and shattering their bones. The bows of the Dwarfs were singing, the Lone Island humans fighting inexpertly but valiantly.

Michael's horse reared, speared through the chest. The Warlord didn't even slow down his swing – he simply leaped from the back of his steed and landed effortlessly on his feet, his sword shattering bones and crushing skulls. Seen now, in combat, his desperation was clear. She had never seen him fight so hard – nor Edmund, either. She suspected that there were entirely different reasons behind their valor – Edmund fought for the chance to save his sister, an attempt to redress any errors that might have been made in his impetuous crusade to the Islands.

But Michael – it was as if Michael could see something terrible unfolding none of them could. Something that was not in his power to prevent but which he desperately wanted to. Almost as if – through surely this was impossible – he had met his match. Victory would be his today, but would it come all too late?

The battle slowed for Elizabeth, her silver blade rising and falling like the sea, the crunch of metal on bone fading from her awareness, cries of pain and shrieks of grief barely heard. Victory was, suddenly, impossibly, theirs – totally and utterly. Half their enemy had fallen in the initial charge, the remains were falling back, dismayed, shattered, broken. Before the Narnians had time to realize it, the battle was won.

Despite everything, it _was_ an anti-climax.

Edmund and Michael were at her sides now as she pressed against the great gate of the fortress, skewering soldiers to the iron-bound pine with precise strokes, even as Dwarfs battered at the postern gate with axes and mattocks. The King – somehow unhorsed – fought with the desperation of a man who wanted to undo what has been done; wanting make amends for his crusade against the Islands that had left his family alone. The Warlord fought like a man wanting to make sure something never came to pass.

Which, Elizabeth wondered as the postern gate crashed open and the two of them charged through, hacking and slaughtering, was more noble?

Almost as an after-thought, Michael and Edmund shouldered the bar off the inside of the gates. The portal swung open, pushed by the surging Narnians, the soldiers of the former Governor falling backwards to be trampled down inside the gateway. Inside the castle was raw chaos – Michael and Edmund fighting like lions, blades rising and falling like chained lightning. Elizabeth, caught between their two desires to undo what was done and prevent something terrible from happening, spurred her horse and galloped into the courtyard.

"Find my enemy!" she cried above the press of battle, "The title of Knight of the Lone Islands to any who bring me him alive!" She did not have to say who her enemy was – the Narnian forces swept through the fortress like the tide as the former Governor's forces set their backs to the wall and died. Not one surrendered, despite Elizabeth's exhortations to her troops to take them alive if possible. It had all simply gone far too far for that.

Edmund was barreling up the stairs that lead to the door of the inner keep of the castle in the wake of the Warlord, the older man stiff-arming a guard over the wooden railing to land on the flagged stone of the courtyard with a crackle of bone. Elizabeth dismounted and sprinted after them as Michael shoulder-barged the door off its hinges and he and Edmund charged through.

As she ran up the stairs, she felt a curious sense of detachment – this didn't feel like it was really happening to her at all. The end of the crusade, yet the beginning of something new – her Governorship of the Lone Islands, a return to Narnia to save the Cair. What in the name of Aslan had lead their enemies to be on maneuvers and be caught so unprepared and unready?

_In the name of Aslan?_ she wondered, _The answer's in the question. It's a miracle, pure and simple._

The Warlord seemed to know where he was going, sprinting through the corridors, battering the few men who bared his way aside with sudden blows of his sword. Edmund and Elizabeth, not questioning his instincts, followed in his wake.

With a terrifying kick that shattered oak like matchwood and bent iron like lead, Michael smashed a heavy door open and the three of them charged down a dimly-lit stairway; stone-flagged stairs from which a damp, musty, rotten smell wafted – a smell that was underlain with sharper, metallic odors.

The three of them burst into what was obviously a cell of some kind – filthy and strewn with ragged straw. Michael's sword decapitated the Minotaur that turned dumbly to face him as Elizabeth and Edmund smashed into the handful of humans there.

"Take them alive, Edmund!" screamed Elizabeth as she recognized the single-eyed face of the former Governor. She blocked the swing of his iron bar with her sword and slammed him in the chin with the heel of her hand. His head snapped back and he struck the wall with a sickening thud, slumping down with his eye glazing. As Edmund drove his fist across the jaw of one of the men, she swept the legs from under another with a reverse swing of the sword and – as he fell unceremoniously to the ground – stabbed downwards with her blade, taking him through the right shoulder with the point. She kicked his sword away as the final man's jaw and face were shattered by a pommel-strike from Edmund.

Thick, bloodstained silence fell in the small cell. Elizabeth breathed in and centered herself, sweeping her eyes around the place where she found herself and taking stock of her surroundings.

For a second, she didn't recognize the odd, bloodstained shape lashed to the huge wheel mounted on the wall. It was lumpy, matted with blood and foam, and seemed to consist mostly of tentacles, woven in and out of the spokes of the wheel. She moved a little closer, even as Edmund tried to hold her back.

"Sweet Lion . . ." murmured the King.

And then the shape stirred and its face – still beautiful amid all that ruin – gazed at them. Elizabeth recognized it and just screamed and screamed and screamed, turning and burying her face in Edmund's chest.

It was Hylonome, her body fractured and splintered, braided into the wheel. Each and every joint in all six of her limbs had been systematically broken, shoved until it bent the wrong way, and then the bones between each joint shattered at least once, reducing her proud legs to nothing more than quivering tentacles of blood and muscle. It was impossible to tell how long she might have lain there, tied to the wheel with cords so tight they cut what remained of her flesh. Michael moved to her side, cradling her head in his hands, supporting her and taking the weight off her neck muscles.

"Your majesty," she whispered. Edmund gently slid Elizabeth off him – who turned and stared with horror and revulsion written on every line of her face – and moved towards the dying Centauride.

"Hylonome," croaked Edmund, "I never . . . I . . . this, this wasn't supposed to happen." She somehow found the strength to smile.

"I did it, sire." Her voice was so quiet they could feel it rather than hear it. "I did it. They broke my legs and I told them north, but you weren't at the north, but they still sent the armies that way. And then half an hour later I told them it was a fib, and they sent a messenger to stop them, and they wheeled me, and I wouldn't tell them. And then I told them south, and that was a fib too, but they believed me and they sent _another_ messenger and they must have been confused, mustn't they, sire?" She looked imploringly into Edmund's eyes. "It worked, didn't it, sire? I thought of it all myself, and it must have worked. Didn't it? It hasn't been that long – you must have won quickly."

Edmund could barely speak for tears that were mostly guilty realization of what his desire to protect his family and nation had lead to. "Oh, Hylonome – yes, yes it worked. They were all over the place, they didn't know what hit them." Exactly _why_ they were so disorganized was now abundantly clear. And then he just broke down, clenching his fists and hiding his eyes. "Damn it all, you didn't need to do this! I would never have asked this of you! We could have won anyway!" She was crying too, hurt and confused he was angry.

"But, but you'd never have done it so fast, would you, sire?" she begged, "You'd never have finished in less than a week or more – and you need to help General Oreius and Queen Susan. I knew that. I was right, wasn't I, sire? Tell me I was right!"

"Yes!" sobbed Edmund. Elizabeth was weeping helplessly beside him, trying to think of how they might splint the limbs, hopelessly hoping something could be done. "Yes, you were right. You are the bravest and cleverest Centaur I have ever met, but you didn't have to do this for us." She smiled.

"I didn't do it for you, sire – I did it for Aslan," she whispered. "You haven't, got a bit of . . . sugar, about you, sire, have you . . ?"

Edmund fumbled clumsily with his gauntleted hand in his pocket, finding a little cube all but battered to crumbs. He raised it to her bloody lips, but they didn't move to pick it up. She was gone.

The King turned to the prisoners lying against the wall, those that were unconscious just now stirring and those with sword-wounds still trying to crawl away. For the briefest of seconds, unholy rage transfigured his face, and then he became as calm and dead as stone.

"If I had time and the stomach for it," he said in a terrible voice, "I would take such revenge on you that what you did to this Centauride would seem as nothing." He drew his sword. "As it is, I offer you clemency. Kneel before me and swear fealty to the crown of Narnia and that you will help mend what you have marred, and I will let you live." Elizabeth grabbed his sword arm.

"You'd offer them mercy?" she cried, "After what they did? By Aslan's blood, Edmund – look what they did!"

"By Aslan's blood?" asked Edmund quietly. "Traitors need no longer die on the Stone Table, precisely _because_ of Aslan's blood." He shrugged his arm clear of the woman. "But they still die if they do not trust in it. What is it to be, gentlemen?"

"A real man would have killed us in battle, boy," snarled the former Governor through lips thick from Elizabeth's blow, "You don't have the guts to do it in cold blood. Damn you, damn your Lion, and damn your offer of mercy – you haven't got the heart."

Edmund narrowed his eyes. "Then I, Edmund, by the gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest King of Narnia under the High King Peter, Emperor of the Lone Islands and Lord of Cair Paravel, Duke of Lantern Waste and Count of the Western March, Lord of the Western Wild, Grand Master of the Noble Order of the Table do hereby find you thrice guilty of high treason against the state, nation and populace of Narnia by association, by action and by belief, consorting with Arch-traitors, practice of unlawful magic, murder, kidnap and slavery. And I hereby sentence you to immediate and sudden death – done, this day in Doorn, the eighteenth of Frostmelt, the third year of the High King's reign!"

Elizabeth could not bear to watch – but closing her eyes did not shut out the terrible sounds; the crunch of metal on bone, the swiftly cut-off screams, the thuds as bodies suddenly slumped and became cold. She opened her eyes as the silence fell.

Edmund stood over the bodies of the humans, his blade bloody and his face impassive. Each had been killed with swift, economical strokes – merciful, perhaps. He wiped his blade clean and turned to Michael.

"Make the army ready to embark. And order Dwarfs to make haste to me – we shall bury Hylonome in the forest below the castle." He sheathed his sword, "I will not have her sacrifice be in vain; we move with all speed to the Cair."


	41. The Calm Before

**Chapter Forty-One : The Calm Before**

On the bare mountaintop, the castle providing scant protection from the wind which howled around like a pack of angry wolves, seeming to come from all directions at once and defying any attempts to shelter from it, the four Narnians stood in a shivering silence and watched as Dwarfish spades and shovels piled earth back onto the grave cut into the hillside. Below them, the rest of the army marched down towards the coast, towards the small bay where Pearl and her sailors had moored the ships taken from the harbor at Narrowhaven.

With a curt nod, Edmund dismissed the Dwarfs who shouldered their weapons, tugged their forelocks, and trotted after the retreating armies.

Silence reigned – the service had been quiet; the Narnian armies drawn into ragged ranks while Dwarfs dug a grave for Hylonome and laid her to rest. Edmund had said nothing, and Rapine's funeral howl had died aborted, him lowering his head before anyone noticed what he was doing. The howling silence of the winds scouring the Islands seemed to demand it.

Elizabeth – still in blood-smirched armor and with a dented vambrace from where she had struck the former Governor – opened her mouth and began, "They shall not grow old . . ." but the words died on her lips. What could she say?

Every November the eleventh, since she was a child, she had stood by one war memorial or another, a poppy in her left lapel. She had sung in choirs, marched with the Brownies. As the bells tolled eleven, she had hung her head and closed her eyes and said nothing for two minutes – and only now she wanted to speak?

Now? Now a girl was dead? How many others had already died in this war? How many had she herself killed? She had lost count – dozens? Maybe a hundred.

How did it go? Kill ten men, you are a monster. Kill a hundred, you are a hero. Kill a thousand, you are a conqueror.

Kill one, and you are a murderer.

Edmund looked down on the freshly-churned grave, and at the mud-stains on his gauntlet from the first-earth. "My folly and anger lead to this," he said, as ever shouldering the blame. "My desire to finish this quickly, to bring help to my family – that is what ended her life." He looked around, half-expecting Hedera to detach herself from the forest with a snide comment and a cruel smirk – but the Dryad was nowhere to be seen. _Perhaps,_ thought Edmund, _she knows this is pain enough. Are we humans really worth so much, worth the death of an innocent?_

Abruptly, Edmund turned and marched down the hillside after his retreating armies – unwilling, perhaps, to hear Elizabeth's platitudes which he knew would be coming. Rapine looked after him, and then up at his mistress. She bowed her head in a nod of dismissal and he slunk off after his King, leaving Michael and Elizabeth alone by the grave.

"I want to go home," she said quietly. Michael turned to her.

"Sorry," he said. She shrugged within her grief.

"Oh, I know there is nothing you can do about it, you don't need to . . ." He interrupted her.

"No, I'm sorry you want to go home. That is a shame – you were doing very well." Elizabeth rounded on him.

"Oh, hark at you!" she cried, "You don't smile, you don't shed a tear, you don't feel a damn thing! She was my friend, and look what they did to her!" Michael gave a ghastly shrug.

"C'est la guerre," he said blankly. Before she realized what she had done, her gauntleted palm had crashed against his cheek. His face spun with the blow, but he showed no other effect.

"Damn you!" she screamed, "An innocent girl died today, and all you can say is 'Such is war'? Don't you have any human feeling?"

"Perhaps not," said Michael softly, "but you certainly do. And I wonder at it." Her dark eyes blazed with hatred as she stared at him.

"You question my grief, _Christian_?" she snarled, "What would Aslan do? Wouldn't he cry? Wouldn't he grieve?" His gaze was impassive, fathomless, ancient and ageless. Despite herself, she felt her emotions leech from her – desperately, she clung to them, thinking they were the things that made her human.

"Of course he would," came Michael's gentle voice from somewhere she didn't know. "But he would cry for _everyone_ – not just one girl. And his tears would not be for something so fleeting as her death. His tears would be simply because you still don't understand." The final three words struck like hammers, shaking the air with harsh crashes.

Elizabeth knew that she did not understand – but what she did not understand, of course, eluded her. Her embarrassment, at seeing that doing what she thought was the right thing and thinking in the right way wasn't enough, made her snort.

"Well, he'll have to put up with this faithless and perverse girl a bit longer, 'cause I'm all he's bloody got!" she yelled in his face. "Where do you get off with the holier-than-thou attitude? _Michael?_ So I cry for Hylonome and I don't cry for the others who have died! Does that make me a bad person? Does that mean I'm just not _good enough_?"

Michael's face was impassive as ever – he could have been carved from the stone on Sinai. "You know the answer to that – you're never _good enough_. And you also know the reason why that doesn't matter – Elizabeth." She hung her head and passed a blood-stained gauntlet over her eyes.

"Grace," she whispered. "That which proceeds from above without merit or price." She stared at him with tearing eyes. "You want _so hard_ to prove yourself worthy of the love you are given, to make yourself into something that deserves it. And you get help and you become better and better and better and all you ever damn-well get is the cold, hard knowledge there's another hurdle, another mountain to climb. I understand him more and more and more and all I really understand is new ways in which I don't measure up!" She turned her tear-streaked face to him. "How come you don't feel it?" she all-but-yelled. He looked at her askance.

"Who says I don't?" he asked quietly. She stopped, the fire in her dying, the wind taken out of her sails and silence falling in her heart despite the growing storm that howled around them.

"How do you bear it?" she begged, seeing him as almost the only certain thing in an uncertain world. "How do you manage?" His eyes – she realized she'd never noticed their color, nor the color of his hair – bored into hers.

"Grace," he said shortly. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. She only opened them again to his callous question. "Is she real?"

"What?" she asked sharply. He gestured at the grave.

"Is she real? Is Narnia real? You have asked yourself – and me – this question before, do you now have an answer?" Elizabeth tilted her chin back, saltwater dripping from it.

"She seemed real to me." Michael had an immediate response.

"Because you touched her and smelt her? Is that it? So why none of this grief for the hundreds who have already died?"

"They weren't my friends – I didn't know them!" she snapped defiantly. "And, if that makes me a horrible person because I didn't get to know them, then fine! I'm a horrible person! I can live with that! I wish they hadn't died, and I wish I knew them well enough to mourn them – but I _don't!_" Fresh tears flowed down her cheeks. Michael remained as stoic as ever.

"You didn't know them – but the audience did, didn't they?" She looked up at him sharply, indignation and annoyance on her face at him bringing his damn metafiction into it. He continued regardless. "They saw them, and knew their struggles and triumphs and hopes, surely? Surely the audience occupies an omniscient position?" She gave an exasperated shrug as if she didn't know or care. "So, tell me why the fangirls on fanfiction dot net are crying into their keyboards and Orlando Bloom souvenir mugs?" Elizabeth's indignation was swept off her face by blank incomprehension.

"Who? _What?_"

"A reference to after the time this story happened but before it was written," Michael explained shortly. "Why are the readers so upset about _her_ death? Why no mass outpouring of grief and rage at the death of those whose names they never learned?" She gave an angry shrug.

"You tell me – I don't read the story, I'm _in_ it," she snarled sarcastically. His retort was as short and stabbing as a poniard.

"Guess."

Her mouth worked for a second in articulate rage – and then she gabbled out an answer. "It's not that they never learned their names, they were never told. They can't come here and learn them . . . as I could have done." She hung her head. "And if I had, they would have done, right?" she snarled. "Because I'm the medium through which they experience this world – this is my tale and through me they feel my struggles and failures."

"And triumphs – do not sell yourself short." She snorted.

"This wasn't for my benefit, was it? Dragging me over the coals? That was for your mythical audience – to make them question their own choices of grief, yes?" Michael seemed to consider.

"That is going to mess with their heads – a character in a story calling _them_ make-believe." She clenched her jaw and hissed through her teeth.

"You are the most callous man I know – how can you make jokes on a day an innocent died?"

"Because otherwise I'd never make light of anything – innocents died yesterday, and are dying today, and will die tomorrow. And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, until the last syllable of recorded time. The fact living things die is the great leveler; it is all each one of them has in common." Into Elizabeth's mind – unbidden – stole the final line of the phrase she had remembered earlier;

_Kill everyone, and you are God._

"But to die like that . . ." Michael stepped forward and put his finger on her lips.

"No." His voice was harsh and brooked no refusal. "No, not to die like that – to live _for_ that and die _for_ those she loved. Do not mourn her passing, mourn that you may never die as well as she did."

"She was my friend," sobbed Elizabeth, trying not to cling to his strong arms.

"She was a soldier as well, and she gave her life for all of you."

"She didn't have to!" Elizabeth wept, finally giving up and burying her face in his chest, sobbing like a little girl. "We could have won without that!"

"She made her choice," he said flatly. "I do not say what she did was right, but there is merit in it. It will save lives, and maybe even Narnia. She made her choice in full cold knowledge of what it would mean. For that, I will honor her until the stars fall." Elizabeth twisted free of Michael.

"I don't want to be here any more, Michael – nobody died in the books! This is hard and horrible and I don't want it any more!" His face was as unforgiving as a holocaust.

"And the massacre of the Holy Innocents is never mentioned in school nativity plays," he said quietly. She looked over at him, a rebuke on her lips, but his voice stopped her. "You are not a child, Elizabeth – the world will not tell you children's stories any longer." She blinked back her tears and set her jaw to the hurricane.

"Let's get going," she said simply.


	42. The Siege of Cair Paravel

**Chapter Forty-Two : The Siege of Cair Paravel**

For seven days and nights the city of Cair Paravel had been held in an inexorable grip of twisted flesh and black iron; a great gleaming gauntlet of her enemies.

The horde of creatures that owed fealty to a dead Witch and demanded blood-price for her death and revenge for their humbling seven seasons before had taken possession of the great clearing to the north of the Cair. The flat and level plain cut from the woodland and once, in happier days, host to tournaments and picnics and parties and romps was now was covered with the fungal canker of a rash of scarlet and black tents, a thousand banners thrust into the flesh of Narnia like arrows, each capped with the snowflake icon of Jadis. Where once the grass had been barely bent by the hooves of Fauns and the dancing of Dryads, now the greensward was trampled into snow-churned ruts of mud and timber splinters as the clearing was extended into the surrounding forests by cruel axes, the bodies of the trees felled and dragged away for forced treason.

Seven of Susan's handmaidens had died during the harvesting – simply rotting to mulch that vanished in a heartbeat. One had died while her leafy fingers plucked at the Queen's hair, screaming and shuddering as sudden blows hacked her tree off at the roots. Everyone in the city watched the Dryads with vulture-eyes, seeing them as women marked for death – not that there was any escaping the city or death for any of them; their enemies held them fast. But it had been three days since the last had died – although it was hard to tell which was harder to experience; the anticipation, the worry or the sympathetic knowledge in their eyes.

Outside the walls of the Cair, renegade Black Dwarfs were trimming bark from the corpses of the trees, cutting notches and grooves in heartwood, hammering home pins and spikes and banding logs with red hot iron. Torsion bundles and counterweights were measured and tested, pivots greased and timbers lashed together, as great engines took shape outside the walls and beyond the reach of bowshot from the walls. Day after day the labor went on, while the Narnians watched, unable to hinder it, trapped behind their own defenses

The gates of the city were locked and bolted and barred and bolstered and barricaded, the curtain walls – rimed with encrusted ice and snow, icicles hanging from them like chains and frost like locks – were re-enforced with stone and buttresses cut from demolished buildings inside the ring of fortifications. And yet the horde sat on the plain they had despoiled and did not attack.

The snow and hail had stopped a week before, but the pressure in the air built with the threat of an oncoming storm; the weight of the air was oppressive, sinuses opening with the ozone and the static charge that crawled over the exposed metallic surfaces of armor Yet the threatened storm did not break, and the weather remained bitterly cold, hardening the ice and snow that encased the castle even as the frost was compressed by the awful pressure in the air.

General Oreius – charged with the defense of the Cair and not Queen Susan now the Colonel was here – had made a number of sorties in an attempt to break the siege and disrupt the supply lines, perhaps just to delay the building of the siege engines by a day or so and buy them some time.

It had availed him nothing – howling from the West, the wolves had come; fast and deep-chested, running over the snow with spatulate paws crunching through the salt-sharp crust of the previous days' fall, blood-stained breasts brushing the ice. Varden was dead and so they lacked the leadership they had once had, but their anger continued undiminished. The defeat at the hands of Nicodemus and Drax and Cyan and Edmund thirteen moons before had made them weaker but had tempered their rage and hatred into a fang-white blade. With the Lantern Waste elite far away, there was no-one to match the hit and run guerrilla tactics of the renegade wolves of the Western Wild. Oreius lost a dozen Centaurs in as many hours, and the engines remained untouched. Bloodied and only unbowed as far as the citizens of the Cair were told, his troops limped back to the city with lupine jaws snapping at their hooves.

Dwarfs and Minotaurs and Ogres and Cruels and Hags and creatures best not guessed at taunted the defenders, standing just outside of bow range and laughing, chanting and roaring beneath banners slung with dripping hides fresh-ripped from the bodies of Centaurs. "Death to the woodlanders, death to the Narnians! Bring out your Queen! Bring out your skulking Queen!"

And still the engines grew outside the walls, beyond the range of bows and beyond the range of effective sallies. By day, the hammering of Dwarfish hammers and the bellows of the Minotaurs could be heard in every room of the Cair. By night, the howls of the wolves echoed through the lamp-lit corridors as the Narnians trembled in fear,

The Narnians had no way to respond or answer, for there was nothing they could do. Trapped, enclosed, imprisoned, their walls had become a cage and their armor shackles. Silence reigned in Cair Paravel. No blow had fallen against them, except against those who had stretched out their hands too far, but the anticipation of the assault bred a fear that ate at the hearts of the Narnians, ague setting into their limbs and courage leaking like sand from the best sandbags after years of use.

While the sun was in the sky, Queen Susan – her feelings and terror trapped inside the immobile mask she wore in place of her usual gentle visage – walked the walls and streets of the Cair, following well-worn routes, offering what calcified comfort she could. Perpetually in armor, feeling the heavy protection as a gilded cage that surrounded her, and with Elikolani and the rest of her bodyguard never more than three strides from her heels, the Queen of Narnia chaffed in the prison of her suddenly-narrowed empire.

On her brow she wore her crown and around her shoulders a heavy cloak was wrapped so she would not shiver in the cold and have her people think her a coward. Where she walked, there was laughter and joy and courage flared like a flame – and died just as fast. The truth of the matter was easy to see - the city was crowded, the people of Narnia crushed next to each other; forest animals cramped in the Cair, Fauns with nowhere to dance, Dryads starved of the sun. Fever ran high in certain quarters of the city; rumors ran higher – the enemy had introduced plague to the Cair, diseased corpses had been flung over the walls, traitorous Talking Rats had slunk through tiny, tiny holes that no-one would think to see and poured vials of poison into the grain. Susan and her Court did their best to quash such rumors, but it was less than a day before worse ones started – that the Court was preparing to barricade the doors of the central keep and trap the sickening city outside.

For six nights Susan slept in Edmund's chambers – tiny, enclosed rooms with windows that were almost embrasures and with every available inch of wall space lined with bookcases tightly packed with books and scrolls and recording systems more ancient – Dwarfish metal and stone plates carved with runes, wolfen sheets of bark carved with claw-cut pictograms, fragile dried-mud tablets with grim Marshwiggle predictions. Every night she lay down to sleep – barely unbuckling her armor and never unbraiding her hair – on his narrow cot with Elikolani and the Dancing Lawn elite pacing in a Mobius strip around it. Nightmares woke her every morning, tangled in the blankets and with her still-unhealed bruises locking and stiffening her muscles.

Dwarfed by the high back and enclosing wings of the massive chair of carved oak set before her brother's enormous desk – carved with runes she could not read and stained with liquor rings – she fretfully sat and brooded over the maps and charts and reports and detritus of his life scattered on the surface. Here and there, knives pinned and heavy crystal goblets held down the corners of maps and scrolls. Holding the chart of the Lone Islands in place was a bottle of Dwarfish brandy, three-quarters full, tightly corked.

_Edmund_ would understand this war – he was the one she wanted here most of all. Peter might be the better warrior, Lucy might have been able to raise the spirits of the people, even Susan might be the soul of Narnia for which they fought – but Edmund could have done . . . _something_. Edmund was the unpredictable one, the one you could rely on to do the unexpected, the one who could be one hundred miles from the Cair without a weapon, plan or defense and still scare his enemies to death. Edmund could break the siege that had the people of the Cair by the heart, even if not one single enemy fell.

On the seventh evening Susan looked around her, at the compact faces of the Dancing Lawn elite surrounding her, and felt the pressure become simply intolerable. Sniffling back the blood from the air-pressure nose-bleed and chaffing at what her people expected her to be – cool and calm and collected and untouched by chaos, panic or disorder – she reached for the temptation she had resisted for a week; a chemical release from the pain and worry and – perhaps – of her inhibitions and concerns.

The cork came out easily, freeing the spirits in a miasma of clean harshness with the speed of the djini in _The Arabian Nights_. She poured three fingers of the glutinous amber fluid into one of the goblets, the dried and crusted remains of the last drink poured into them a month before melting and dissolving. As the vellum coiled into a loose roll, she tilted back her head and poured the liquor down her slim throat. It seared, burning down her vocal chords, hitting her epiglottis and vaporizing with blood-heat. She felt fumes spiral up through her nose and sinuses, filling her cheek bones and boiling behind her eyes. She coughed reflexively, her head slipping forward and her chest convulsing, dragging alcohol into her lungs.

Edmund felt this – or something similar – every day of his life. What was he anesthetizing himself against as he drank this stuff? Who was her beloved brother? What lonely road had he _really_ walked back from the Witch's Castle? What had made him take it as his seat and the wolves as his servants and second-family and _pack_?

The blood of _how_ many Minotaurs and _how_ many glasses of brandy was needed to wash the taste of Turkish Delight from his mouth?

With baleful, red-rimmed, watering eyes she looked at the dregs of brandy lurking in the bottom of the goblet and then flung them into the fire. It sparked and flared with sapphire-blue flames as she put the neck of the bottle between her teeth and poured another slug down her throat.

Elikolani stood, perhaps to utter an admonishment, but Susan dismissed her and the rest of the cats with a wordless snap of her fingers, upending the bottle again. Elikolani remained where she was for a second, before Susan's emerald eyes skewered her with a look that brooked no refusal. Unsure but obeying, the cats slunk from the bare room as Susan stood and - feeling the pain and tension leave her shoulders and the inhibitions of what her people wanted her to be melt in the tide of alcohol – stumbled her way back towards her own chambers.

The bottle was half-empty by the time she got there, slumping down half on the huge four-poster bed and half on the great open expanse of floor, the bottle spinning across the floor, liquor glugging from its neck. "Truth or dare, Susan?" she slurred, remembering the nights spent playing the game with a ginger beer bottle in the dormitory of her school that seemed so long ago.

"Truth – I'm drunk, and I'm very frightened. Dare – I . . ." The words caught in her throat as she reeled to her feet, clumsy fingers plucking at her cloak and armor's buckles, scattering the metal and fur across the floor of her enormous chamber as she walked to the great windows and flung them wide, stepping out onto the sweeping expanse of balcony.

She heaved the heavy night air into her lungs, hands on the parapet and the moonlit wave crests of the sea swimming before her eyes. "Dare – oh, I know what you want, you bastard lion. I know what your dare is! Don't tell _me_ what you want of me, not me, not the Queen of Narnia! I know my duty – you can sit with your bloody father beyond the sea and with my brothers playing toy soldiers and my sister camping out in the woods and leave me and the people you're supposed to love trapped in a doomed city, but don't you dare tell me my duty!" Her shouldered heaved, sobs threatening to break free from her as tears beaded in her verdant eyes and her nose sniveled. She closed her eyes, the emotion ebbing from her.

"Oh, Aslan," she slurringly sobbed, maudlin tears rolling down her cheeks, "I'm sorry. I'm scared, and I'm so very alone, and I don't want to be here any more – but most of all I don't want to not want to be here any more." She bit her lip to try to stem the tears. "If that makes any sense, oh – you know what I mean! I want to be brave! I want to live up to what you want of me – but you were wrong. I'm not that good any more, I made lavish promises and I said I would but I can't! You've put your faith in a girl who gets drunk and cries and yells at you and blames you when the going gets tough!" She raised her face to the heavens, not feeling the few drops of rain on her tear-streaked face. "When that siege breaks _I can't hold it!_"

Silence answered her – dead, unforgiving, unanswering silence. She hung her head.

"I'm going to have to, aren't I? Because there's no-one else." She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw, sobbing out the words in a halting whisper. "Behold the handmaid of the Lion, let it be done unto me according to your wishes."

With a sudden implosion of pressure, the sky cracked with a great sheet of lightning as the threatened storm broke right over the Cair and for miles out into the bay of Glasswater. Enormous spars of flame bounced from cloud to cloud and rang off the weather vanes of the Cair, the copper-bands of the lightning rods glowing actinic white in the water-smeared darkness. Rain lashed down like stair-rods, support-beams creaking and slates and lead clattering off the roof to crash into the courtyard far below. The snow and ice was washing away in a torrent, rain cascading down only to be caught by the wind and flung against the seawall of the Cair with scouring force. At the base of the cliff the sea was being carved and cut into fantastic shapes, the gray-black water with the foaming crests of white being smashed half-way up the rock and then sucked back with such force the underwater tunnels that lead to the deepest dungeons of the Cair were revealed.

Susan reeled from more than the brandy as the very floor of the balcony shifted and swayed, razor-sharp fragments of stone flying from the wall of the tower beneath as a great trebuchet-hurled rock smashed into it. In the room behind her an amber-stature of a howling wolf – a precious trinket that Edmund had carved for her over a year before out in the Western Wild – tumbled from the shelf to shatter into a thousand pieces on the floor. She turned and ran back through her chamber, plucking her armor from amid the forest of razor-sharp yellow glass and frantically strapping it on. The brandy still plucked at the corners of her awareness, her mind free and light, adrenalin washing the fatigue and wounds from her body. She swept her loose hair back from her face as she unlimbered her bow and untied the mouth of her quiver. "_Elikolani!_" she screamed as she burst through the door.

The Colonel was by her side in a second. "Your majesty," she purred, "I must urge you to come with me – General Oreius has arranged a fortified position in the cellars of the castle. In there you stand the best chance of surviving this bombardment." Susan brushed off the suggestion of stepping back into a prison.

"My place is on the walls, Colonel - I'm the best archer in Narnia," she said without exaggeration. The panther padded alongside her as she ran along the corridors of the Cair, coming out onto the balcony and stairs that lead down into the central courtyard.

"With the greatest of respect, your majesty," the cat said in her cut-glass, sarcastic voice, "even while drunk?"

Susan's reply would have been cut off by the impact of another boulder against the wall of the Cair and the howling gale, but she choose not to make it as – high on the walls above – a lantern fell from its hook and spiraled lazily towards the ground, scattering motes of spinning yellow light over the monochrome-strobe of the lightning-lit courtyard. The flights of an arrow were at the Queen's ear in a moment and – less than a heartbeat later – the lantern was pinned to the wall by its hanging ring, kept from shattering on the cobbles and scattering burning oil over the panicking civilians below.

"Yes," said Susan shortly as she reached the floor of the courtyard. The Dancing Lawn elite formed up behind their commander as the Queen's green eyes swept the immediate area. "Oreius!" she snapped at the massive chestnut Centaur, "Get these civilians under cover or get them on fire fighting duty!" As if to underscore her point, a missile of burning pitch exploded against one of the towers of the inner gate, scattering flames over a wide area. Even with the rain that poured from the sky and washed over everything like a river, the smoke and screams rose instantly. "This city will be a damn crucible inside of an hour if we don't!" Oreius nodded and hastened to obey.

Over the skirl of the wind and the hiss of the rain and the ringing crash of the thunder, the terrible death-knell of a massive ram being pounded against the Gate could be heard. High above, the shrieking-screams of the Harpies and leather-winged Vampire-bats rang in the ears. The air split with dull whistles as they swooped down, horrified shrieks rising as the Narnians were clawed and gouged from above, weapons and buckets being dropped at they frantically clutched at their faces and tried to beat the monsters off with bloodied hands. Susan snapped her head to Elikolani, rainwater scattering from her flowing hair.

"Colonel, take your elite and make a sortie from a postern-door – that Gate is the lynchpin and weak point of the wall. Down that ram even if it costs you your lives – buy us time for the High King to get here!" Elikolani snarled.

"Your majesty, our place is with you!" Susan roared into her face and over the noise of the echoing storm.

"My place is on the walls defending against those things!" An elegant finger stabbed upwards. "You think I have time to argue with you, Elikolani, while my city burns? Get to it!" The huge cat's great green eyes closed briefly and then she and her elite turned and ran, even as Susan swallowed the certain knowledge she had sent her most loyal followers to their deaths and then span away, sprinting through the pell-mell of running bodies.

Chaos reigned in the Cair – from the roof of the highest tower where soldiers tried to hold off the Harpies and bats to the lowest dungeon where water was scooped in buckets from the pools that connected via underground channels with the sea and passed, on long chains of terrified civilians, to the surface where it was thrown onto the growing flames. Glass and stone shattered alike as missiles crashed into the walls, shattering and imploding roofs, crushing beams and trapping screaming Narnians under the rubble of the bombardment.

Susan ran for the nearest tower, charging up the stairs three at a time, blinking rainwater from her eyes and praying it hadn't got into the bowstring. She burst out onto the roof of the Cair, the three-quarter moon hidden behind cloud and only the flashing lightning providing illumination. On either side of the pitched slates the gutter chattered with gurgling water, pouring from downspouts and the mouths of gargoyles to gush into the courtyards below. But it was not the carven elves that caught the Queen's eye, but rather the swooping harridans that screeched and shrieked above her, swooping down and slashing at her people with iron-hard claws and buffeting wings. Even as she watched, a Dwarfish archer was knocked from his place on the wall to tumble to the ground below, landing with a wet crackle of bone.

Susan's hand reached without thinking for an arrow and she put it through the chest of the Harpy who had killed the Dwarf. All around her, the archers – mostly Dwarfs, but the occasional Faun here and there – were frantically shooting and trying to defend themselves. The swift-moving targets, illuminated only by the flashing white light of lightning and blurred by the rain, were all-but-impossible to draw a bead on. The thunder rolled in echoing crashes, seeming to bounce off itself and make the windows of the Cair rattle, but the deep bass notes did not appear to hamper the echo-location of the bats, who swooped and wheeled, clawing at the faces of the defenders.

Elikolani and her troupe sprinted to the postern gate, the panther snapping orders at the two Fauns assigned to guard it and Carmit's eyes daring them to make a cat-flap joke. The Fauns wrenched back the bolts and jerked the door open for the briefest of moments, a tide of feline flesh pouring from the portal and into the flashing, streaming night.

High on the castle walls, Susan could see the way the combat was going – the number of her people on the walls would be their undoing; they simply presented too-many targets. With the roiling thunder and crashing lightning and the slick slates underfoot the poor Dwarfs – good archers on the ground or in the half-light of their mines – were simply not good enough. Here and there, a Harpy or bat fell but – in the main – the victories were going to the Witch's forces.

"Inside!" yelled Susan, "Inside and bolt the doors! You're giving them targets!" She rolled to one side, nearly slipping on the slimy tiles, grabbing at a flying buttress to save herself and shooting down another Harpy. "Get into the courtyard and shoot from there – get some Fauns with pikes to defend you! You do no good here!"

"But, your majesty!" exclaimed one of the Dwarfs, "You can't stay here alone!" Susan's beautiful face darkened with unalloyed rage.

"If one more person tells the Queen of Narnia what she _cannot do_ she will kick their disrespectful carcase from here to Harfang!" she yelled. A whistling caught her ear and she dived and rolled away from the buttress she was sheltering behind moments before the missile from a ballista turned it to flinders of shattered and sundered stone. Rock dust covered her armor as she tumbled, being sluiced off in seconds by the cascading tide of water. "_Get inside!_" Stunned, the archers obeyed.

On the plain outside, the trebuchets and ballistae continued to rain missiles – great hunks of rock and stone and huge balls of burning pitch – onto the walls of the Cair. Masonry shattered and broke, walls tumbling and collapsing, others exploding into great flaming masses of roasting flesh and screaming innocents. Elsewhere, ladders were thrown against the walls and the defenders – with the strength and desperation of the damned – threw them from the walls. A rain of arrows flew from the walls, smashing into Minotaurs and Ogres and punching through the flesh of Cruels and Hags and creatures more foul. The answering flight of shafts sent defenders tumbling backwards to fall from the walls, dead before they hit the ground.

Here and there the walls were weakened – tumbled into piles of rubble by mining and counter-mining by renegade Black Dwarfs and loyal Red Dwarfs and Narnian moles. The foundations of the Cair were honeycombed with a hundred tunnels, rocks dragged out of place, earth shoveled aside, props placed to support the weight of the roof and then fired – crashing down into ash and causing the walls above them to subside suddenly, great stones and warriors slipping and sliding and falling to crash into bleeding ruin.

But, even as the curtain wall fell in places and burned in others, the attackers found themselves fighting their way into a maze of stakes and trenches and booby-trapped houses. Ropes were pulled, releasing tumbling troughs of rocks onto the heads of the Narnians' enemies. Houses were deliberately demolished, lintels falling down and crushing Dwarfs and Minotaurs. The attackers were hemmed into killing zones by stakes, arrows and spears flying down on them from above. But onwards they fought.

It was at the Gate that the main strength of the enemy was concentrated, however, for although it was huge and high, as thick as a spear is long and made of iron-banded oak, cemented into massive stone towers on a pivot of gleaming steel, it was the weak point of that brilliant white wall. As the lightning flashed it lit a terrible scene – a great ram made from an oak-tree one hundred feet in length bound and shod with iron swung in its mountings. No flame would catch on its housing as the frantic defenders of the Gate shot at it, and the shafts bothered the enormous Giants who wielded it no more than a fly from the marshes.

With a roar, Elikolani and her troupe threw themselves – desperately, futilely – against the massive monsters. The ram crashed against the Gate and then swung limp as the Giants turned to face the onrushing cats. Claws and teeth flashed like new lightning as the Dancing Lawn elite snarled and ravened. A Giant fell as Elikolani and Sutta crashed into its face, his eyes gouged from his head by three-inch fangs and black-furred paws, but elsewhere the terrible spiked boots stamped down, breaking spines and crushing pelvises. Kimba died in a heartbeat, her broken body twitching like her dreaming tail for minutes afterwards.

Alone on the roofs now, her people running down the stairs to the courtyard to bolster the defense there, Susan nocked another arrow and dropped yet another Harpy. Susan understood air and water – three dimensional combat – and she knew that a lone target would deny her enemy their numerical superiority. The sweeping curves and arcs they described in the air would interfere with each other if they tried to attack her en masse, and so they could only come at her at a certain frequency. _Of course, _she thought as she ducked to one side and shot a bat from the sky, _that is still far too fast for my liking._

Something grabbed Susan around the neck from behind, razor-sharp claws scrabbling at her throat and cutting the leather thong that held the amber lion's head. It clattered inside her armor as she dropped her chin to save her windpipe and prevent her veins from being sliced open. Lightning reflected from her water-washed golden armor as she realized the Harpies' plan – hold her immobile to allow one of their number to slam her in the face.

With a grunt of effort, she threw herself backwards, landing heavily on her shoulders and crushing the Harpy that had grabbed her under her full armored weight. She felt bones and sinews fracture and tear as the wing around her neck went limp. As the second harridan flew over her, passing through where her head had been scant moments before, she shot it in through the chest. It tumbled out of the sky as she shook off her assailant and rolled back to her feet, another arrow in her hand.

A bat crashed into her face. Susan dropped the shaft and clawed it off her, snapping its bones like matchwood. A Harpy body-slammed her and she tumbled, her booted feet sliding on the moss and slime of the slates. Her heels caught in the guttering and she pitched backwards, her hand dropping to her hip, snatching her dagger free and driving it into the mouth of a gargoyle as she fell past. She hung – one handed – from the mouth of the monster while a torrent of blood-stained water poured down into her face and the Harpies swept down on her people below.

The curtain wall was burning now, lying in rubble in several places where the great missiles had struck it, burning pitch splattering over roofs and around carved wooden beams. Smoke and smog rose, together with a desperate wailing and crying and weeping – the children of the Cair were frantic, tears streaming down their faces, panicking, terrified, unsure. Their parents cuddled them to them, reaching out and trying to comfort them in their own terror.

But, strangely enough, it was the children – the cubs, the saplings, the kittens and the babes in arms – who comforted their parents; with barks and yips and touches of branches. _Don't worry,_ they said, _Peter will be here any minute._

They said those words as if that name could conjure miracles. And, in a sense, it could. The High King had never been defeated in battle, never once lost. He was a formidable warrior and matchless tactician.

He was a boy scarcely older than some of those who were invoking his name. The adults knew what they dare not tell their children – that Peter might very well be pinned down in the north, that if he could come, he would be here by now. The Cair – the central citadel, the seat of his power – was burning. Queen Susan hung by a creaking dagger above a drop that would kill her. Outside, a horde of the Witch's forces battered against the remains of the Gate while Giants butchered the Dancing Lawn elite. How could _anything_ stand against such reckless hate?

Beyond the smoke and smog and fume of the burning curtain wall, out against the cold northern skies scoured clean of clouds and hope, in the light of the sun that was just rising to the east, sweeping shapes could be seen by the sharp-eyed – half-a-dozen or fewer. In windows and by embrasures parents frantically cuddled children and peered at the shapes, trying to discern what they might be.

Their children could see – with visual acuity the adults had forgotten they ever had – but, more importantly, they _knew_.

"It's Peter!" they cried or barked or rustled or shouted, Faun or cub or sapling or kitten, "It's Peter and the Moorland elite! They've come!" As the shapes swooped closer, they resolved themselves into Gryphons, one with a human figure mounted on its back – an unheard-of practice. Lightning glinted and glimmered on armor and claws and iridescent feathers.

_Only six?_ thought the adults, knowing what this meant. That his army was broken, or trapped. That he had come to be here at the fall of Narnia, at the end of the Golden Age, to die at the Cair as she herself died. It was a noble gesture from a doomed King, a decent final act in a too-short play. "Yes," they thought they lied to their children, "Peter will save the day."

But Oreius, trapped in fighting inside the curtain wall, and Elikolani, watching her sisters being smashed to bleeding ruin in the morass of the killing field, and Susan, armor awash with blood and hanging by a thread, knew the truth.

They knew the truth that the adults were wrong and the children were right. They knew he had had no help to send and so he had sent himself. They knew that King Peter, High King over all Kings of Narnia and Rock of the Lion, was more than enough.


	43. Between the Storm of His Paws

**Chapter Forty-Three : Between the Storm of His Paws, in the Gale of His Breath**

The northern shore of Doorn was - except for the deep inlet at the head of which Narrowhaven stood - made up of towering granite cliffs studded with pine forests that swept down in dizzyingly steep slopes to the crashing ocean or - here and there - a small bay with a fringe of golden beach. Now, the rain lashed down on those gilded necklaces, tarnishing the sand to the crushed iridescence of a mermaid's discarded jewelery

In ages past, someone had cut steps leading from the clifftop down to the semi-circle of sand that surrounded the bay – risers and treads sliced from the living rock, zigzagging downwards from the green-scented darkness of the forest into the sun-battered, salt-washed shores of the straits. Here and there, the monotony of the flights of stairs was relieved by whimsical carvings and graffiti cut into the stone.

The rain lashed against the Islands, flung by the great storm that roiled and span clockwise above them, a column of leaping gray in the upper reaches of which sparkling lightning flashed and boomed from purple thunderhead to black cloud. A tide of water poured from the heavens, the wind howling like a pack of wolves, the last of the snow being washed from the trees and the ground. A river ran guttering and gurgling down the stairs, surging and foaming ice-cold around Edmund's boots as he marched down the treacherous steps – a path the Narnian and Lone Islands armies had already taken. On the scoured and graying beach the forces were drawn up in ranks, waiting for the boats to ferry them across to the ships riding at choppy anchor in the bay.

The majority of the troops had already embarked by the time the boy-King - drenched, cold and with his ears and eyes ringing with the storm – reached the bottom of the stairs, but a handful remained in a rain-soaked huddle around the Admiral and a few of the commanders. Edmund stepped lightly from the final stair and turned, walking quietly into the shadow of the cliff face. Here, the booming sound of the surf crashing against the bay and the hissing, howling roar of the storm above was muted and dulled to a ever-present, meaningless noise that swirled in the ears like over-wrought blood. He drew his cloak about him, a pointless gesture for the wool and velvet were soaked clean through and the oiled armor was proof against storms so bad they would crush his bones to jelly, and reached for the flask of brandy stored in the specially-made pouch over his kidneys. He pulled the amber wolf's head stopper from the silver flask and set the neck between his teeth. The harsh jolt of alcohol pushed away the cold and the pain and his memories.

"Enough to share?" asked the voice behind him, growling through the storm in an accent Edmund's ear was trained to hear. With a splash, Rapine leaped the last few stairs and landed at his feet. The King shielded his face as the wolf shook himself dry from snout to tail, sending a spray of water arching away. Edmund crouched down and cupped his hand, pouring some of the brandy into it. Rapine lapped at the trickling spirit before it fell to the ground. The wolf licked his jaws a couple of times to make sure he had left none outside.

"What will I do without you, Rapine?" asked Edmund quietly. The wolf's ears twisted and his head turned to the side in puzzlement. "Who can I get to replace you now that you're Marshal here?"

"Captain Drax – or Major Cyan," he said shortly. "Both of them are very capable. Make both of them Lieutenant-Colonels and have two Deputy Marshals if you like – nothing says you have to have a single officer in my place." His voice trailed off. "Sire?"

Edmund sighed and tilted the flask between his teeth again. "You know what I mean, Rapine – Drax or Cyan are a given. I could appoint a hundred wolves to Colonel and they wouldn't add up to your snarl."

"Sire, I . . ." Edmund plowed over him.

"I won't have false modesty, Rapine – you're the best," he said flatly. "You're a better fighter than Drax, a better field commander than Nicodemus. You're the finest tracker in Narnia and you know it like the back of your paw."

Rapine wasn't comfortable with the praise. "Nicodemus is better placed to be the Beta of the pack," he reasoned, "and my knowledge of the Western Wild is limited."

Edmund shook his head. "I'm not King of the Western Wild." The wolf grinned, bearing his fangs in a way that no other wolf in Narnia would do to show pleasure.

"But you are Lord," he said softly. Edmund paused, and then turned to his favored commander.

"Why didn't you come with me, Rapine?" he asked. "Over a year ago, when I asked you to – I asked you to come with me to the west and treat with the wolves. You stayed at the Cair with Susan – you still do – why? I would have appointed whoever the pack chose as my Marshal, and yet you didn't even challenge – you let mere cubs argue and bicker when a single growl from you would have settled the matter once and for all. 'Better placed'? Not one other wolf considered such a rational motive!" He paused, and then sighed. "I don't mean to pry if it is unwarranted – you have served Narnia and I with a loyalty of which few can boast, I cast no aspersions on you and I do not question your motives for remaining hundreds of leagues to the east far from your own kind, but . . ." He shrugged. "I am curious what has driven you towards the rising sun, the path we humans usually take." Rapine sat on his haunches and looked up at Edmund with his great yellow eyes.

"I am not like the other wolves, Edmund." The King started, it was the first time Rapine had used his first name, although the rest of the wolves would use it often when they were alone. "I was an orphan, my parents were killed during the first assaults of the Witch from the far North."

"I did not know," apologized Edmund, "I am sorry." Rapine shook his head.

"Such things are not your fault. I was raised in Cair Paravel by Princess Swanwhite – I was a puppy and she was a girl. I never knew what you would call my own kind. I may be everything you say but, first and foremost, I am not what I look like. The way I was raised, I tend to think like you." He paused and smiled his un-wolfish smile. "And, when I say like you, I, of course, mean like the humans." Edmund picked up the reference immediately.

"And I don't?" Rapine twisted his head judiciously.

"You _think_ as is necessary – but when you _feel_ you do it like a wolf," he growled. "You are the Alpha of the Lantern Waste and the Lord of the Western Wild – you are the only non-wolf to have held those titles by honest acclamation." He paused. "I think that answers your question."

Edmund looked down at the wolf. "Susan," he said, realizing, "she reminds you of Swanwhite. The Queen of the Cair." Rapine nodded.

"Dark and beautiful and loyal to a fault," he growled with relish, "but Elizabeth reminds me more – she is the spitting image of her, and whenever she opens her mouth I can hear my mistress' voice. She was the closest thing I had to a sister. You forget - I am not a pup any more. Elizabeth and I are of an age, and we have both sacrificed a great deal to be who we are." He lowered his head. "I understand her, and she I. I could not save Swanwhite, but I will defend Elizabeth while there is breath in my body." There was silence save for the howling of the storm around them.

"Thank you," said Edmund eventually. Rapine's head snapped up. "Thank you, for all your service, and advice, and kindness. For the times you have saved my life and my country and my friends. And thank you for watching over Elizabeth – I would not have won without her and she would not have won without you." Rapine might have replied, but Pearl was marching over to them across a now empty beach.

"Time ter board!" she screamed into the howl of the wind. Edmund nodded, looking back up the cliff that towered above him. Michael and Elizabeth were clambering down the stairs, water washing over their shoulders and foaming around their feet. He turned back to the Admiral.

"This storm blew up out o' nowhere!" she yelled, "No sign o' it! Yer expect ugly weather blowin' out o' the east in Wildsnow and Frostmelt, but I can't account fer this!" Edmund tilted his bruised head back and looked up into the great funnel of wind and rain that poured wrath down on this little square of his Kingdom.

"This is what will get us to Narnia, Admiral," he bellowed, his own maniacal glee and the force of the wind pushing his lips back into a box-like rictus grin. Ice-rimmed rain and fragments of hail clicked off his exposed teeth. "We will make landfall in time as this storm will drive our ships before it!" Michael and Elizabeth had reached the bottom of the stairs scant seconds before and she shouted to be heard above the storm.

"Or smash them to flinders, Edmund!" she screamed. Even over the howl of the gale and the ringing metallic impacts of water on her pauldrons she could hear the creak of lanyards and sheets and masts. "This isn't a storm – it's a hurricane!" Edmund turned to her and clapped a gauntleted hand on her shoulder.

"Have a little faith, Elizabeth!" he shouted. "Aslan will see us through. This storm is his doing." Elizabeth grinned, his enthusiasm and belief was infectious. Pearl snorted.

"His doin' or no, I want ye all on the bloody ships afore they rip their moorin's – I might no have been able to read this storm as it came in, but I can read it now." She was chivvying them towards the last boat bobbing and jerking on a tempestuous sea the color of shattered slate. "In less than a watch the eyewall o' this storm will hit here – I don' want ter try n' ride it out in the straits. I want ter be in clear water, else we'll all be singin' wi' mermaids afore moonrise!"

The crossing of the few yards was fraught with peril, for the eye of the storm was close now, smashing the sea into mountainous fragments of cold water that burst over the bows of the boat, almost swamping it. Within moments, all of them were soaked to the skin and with teeth chattering, eyes smarting from the salt water. The ships pitched in the water as they tried to clamber aboard, ropes creaking and timbers groaning as the water and wind massaged it cruelly. The anchor chain hung slack one second and taut as a poker the next, individual links flexing and creaking with intolerable strain. Eventually, the four Narnians stood on the deck of the ship, a deck that pitched and heaved worse, if that were possible, than the sea it sat on. Rain lashed down and thunder rolled above them, sails rippling and booming like drumskins, ropes singing in the wind. The Admiral grinned mirthlessly as her crew ran hither and thither, each knowing their place and working silently amid the terrible noise.

"Lessen yer all know far more abou' sailin' than yer've been lettin' on, get yer landlubber arses below!" she bawled. "Yer'll just get in our way – and keep yer bloody soldiers from throwin' up in the bilges, will ye? 'Tis gonner be rough but I'll get ye ter Narnia." The four of them turned and – as best they could – made their way to the aftcastle door under the poop, the deck pitching and heaving like a living thing, water covering everything and the wind scouring the flesh from their bones. Michael reached the door first and wrenched it open, Elizabeth and Rapine dashing through it. Edmund made to follow and then paused, looking back towards Pearl as she and a few others hauled the anchor up and set the ship's bows to the west.

"Admiral!" he bellowed. She turned to him with a look of annoyance on her face. "One day you will tell me why you are helping me so much, but – for now – thank you." Pearl's dark face softened and she smiled.

"Ah, yer welcome," she howled back. Edmund saluted her and turned away, struggling through the waves washing over the deck of the ship. He reached the door, hauling himself through and slamming it shut behind them.

Inside the cabin, illuminated by a queasy oil-lamp hanging from the pitching roof and rain-smeared lightning filtering through the tiny leaded-glass windows, the seeming-silence was heavy and oppressive. The creakings and bangings and moans and groans coming from below decks as soldiers felt the storm grab and twist their guts were certainly loud but, compared to the deafening howl of the storm, it was as quiet as the grave.

Elizabeth ran her hands through her long hair, dislodging a tide of seawater onto the floor below. Rapine shook himself, to shrieks and laughter from Elizabeth. Edmund walked to the window and peered out. "See anything?" asked Elizabeth. He shook his head.

"Not that I can read – it's just storm-clouds and waves and wind to me. We'll just have to trust Pearl to get us there."

"And now that we are trapped on these ships, of course," came Hedera's voice as the Dryad herself stepped from the shadows, "we have little choice but _to_ trust the pirate." She paused. "It might be rumored among the armies we have relied too much on humans of whom we know little." Elizabeth stretched her long limbs and set herself effortlessly in a chair, jamming her booted heel against the door jamb and shoving the back of the chair against the wall as the rest of the room slid and swung past her. She reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a comb, beginning to brush the tangles from her long hair.

"Not among my armies, it's not," she smiled, her hands busy and eyes not focusing on the Dryad. She turned and faced her. "Who _have_ you been talking to, Spymistress?" Hedera hissed.

"Your armies, Governor?" she snarled. "You are distancing yourself from Narnia, are you not?" Elizabeth shrugged, too tired to rise to the Dryad's baiting and realizing letting it wash over her was a better strategy.

"I get the impression you'd like the Islanders and myself to be distant from Narnia," she said wearily, "but I'm not. We're coming to help lift the siege of the Cair, Hedera – I'd have thought you'd be grateful." The Dryad's red eyes narrowed.

"We do not ask for your aid," she snarled, "Aslan will deliver us, as he always has." Rapine laughed, his teeth winking in the lamplight and the swirling light making his shadow wax and wane like the moon.

"Yes, of course – last time he delivered us he delivered us four humans; am I the only one seeing a pattern here?" He chuckled and looked at Elizabeth, who laughed openly and brushed his scruffy mane a little, easing out a few tangles.

"You mock me?" snapped Hedera. "You think this is a jest, lapdog? What do your opinions matter – you have always been the servant of the humans! What do you care that three hundred good Narnian troops have died taking these Islands and that three hundred humans come back with us to our shores?"

"Hedera." Edmund's voice was the crack of a whip. "Enough – I have allowed you latitude and I have allowed your opinions to have voice. You have served Aslan and Narnia loyally and well, but you have never given those he chose the respect we deserve." Hedera lowered her head, realizing she had overstepped but caring for the wrong reasons. "Consider this a warning – I will not tolerate it any longer. If, Aslan willing, the siege of the Cair can be lifted we begin a new age in Narnia – an age when all who call Aslan their master can call Narnia their home. Be they Faun or Dryad or Centaur or Man, all are welcome."

"I tore down the wall of Narrowhaven!" she snarled. "I made possible your victory!"

"Yes," he said softly, "and Elizabeth turned the people of the Islands to my side and they fought alongside the Narnians. This victory is as much theirs as ours. Regardless," he continued, "I have spoken. I am Narnia – and the men of the Islands are our allies."

"We do not need them," hissed the Dryad. Edmund shrugged.

"Perhaps not – but Aslan has decreed we have them anyway. I, for one, are grateful for their aid." He paused and looked at his spymistress. "You are dismissed," he said silverly. With a last, baleful, look around the room, she bowed and departed as suddenly as she had come.

"She _hates_ us!" whispered Elizabeth as Edmund slumped down wearily next to her, "After everything we have done, all the sacrifices we've made, after everything Aslan has said – she still hates us!" It did not seem to sort ill for her that she was including herself in the blanket praise of her species. "Sweet Lion, how many Edmunds does it take to undo the one error Digory made?" The King laughed.

"She doesn't believe the Prophecy," growled Rapine quietly, "and she doesn't believe the High King and you were given to rule over Narnia. Her faith in Aslan and Narnia is unassailable, but she does not accept there is a special role for the humans her kind cannot fulfill. She does not accept you are what you are." Edmund turned to him.

"And that is?" he asked, not having experienced the conversation between the wolf and the woman in the outpost castle a few nights previously.

"That which rules and is obeyed and holds the very place of Aslan in this world," said Elizabeth indistinctly, her voice muffled by the heavy mug awash with heavier rum. Edmund looked at the two of them in wonder.

"You idolize us," he exclaimed incredulous, snatching the mug from her hand and taking a draught. "Both of you." He shook his head and Elizabeth smiled crookedly at him.

"We're worth idolizing," she purred. Edmund snorted and stood.

"I'm tired – I'm going to sling some hammocks. Warlord, will you . . . ?" He looked around. "Oh, by the Lion's mane – he's done it again." Elizabeth's head snapped up and she sniggered as she saw – save for the three of them – the cabin was empty.

Up on the poop deck, at the sternmost point of the ship that was being driven before the howling gale, pitching and tossing impossibly, the rudder splintered and shattered, sails untrimmed and with even the most hardy sailors clinging desperately to spars and lanyards, Michael stood immobile and impassive. The eyewall of the storm had smashed into the ships before they had cleared the straits and Pearl had cursed, offering a prayer up to her own gods, realizing she'd be drinking brine in seconds, the ships driven onto rocks and shattered like children's toys.

And then the great cloud behind them had roared and roiled, taking on the massive form of a terrible Lion. Lightning flashed from his jaws and sparked from his eyes, the clouds that were his mane rolling and bulging, the purple thunderhead muscles in his shoulders clenching to spring.

The full force of the storm hit them with an impact that shook loose every pin and spar and rivet, raising the ships out of the water and onto the foaming wavetops. Pearl expected them to spin and flounder, for waves to catch them broadside and flip them over. But none of that happened.

To either side of them, the great stormpaws of the Lion pounded the walls of the straits, driving them between them in a snaking path that whipped them around rocks and reefs and hazards. Behind them, the great mane and roaring jaws – thunder deafening and lightning flashing like fangs – pushed them onwards at a speed that Pearl had never dreamed was possible. The ships creaked and flexed in protest as the Lionstorm drove them ever onwards, steering them as perfectly as the eldest Marshwiggle and with the speed of an eel. In what seemed like minutes, they were clear of the straits and the great leaping, heaving gray expanse of the Bight of Calormen opened before them.

Rain lashed down, the sea was a crumpled mass of peaks and troughs as gray as stone topped with peaks as white as snow, but the ships flew straight and true and with such speed those on board scarcely felt the waves.

Pearl reeled through the driving rain washing over the deck like a baptism, dragging herself through the torrent that poured down the ladder from the poop. She looked past Michael at the great mass of storm clouds, at the terrible eyes and the lightning-tipped paws. She couldn't bear to look any longer, but something kept her from looking away. "That's yer Lion?" she croaked at the back of the Warlord's head. He turned to face her.

"No," he said impassively, as a sudden jolt of the ship knocked her to her knees, "he's _our_ Lion."

Straight as an arrow, driven by storm winds that knew no master but the Lion, between the storm of his paws, in the gale of his breath, the armies of the Lone Islands sped towards their destiny at Cair Paravel.


	44. The Battle of Glasswater

**A/n : **Just a note which I am forced to add. There is a scene in the _Prince Caspian_ movie which involves Susan, a Gryphon, a bow and some arrows. There is also a similar scene in this chapter. My point? I CAME UP WITH THAT FIRST!

Thank you :)

**Chapter Forty-Four : The Battle of Glasswater**

The booming roar of the storm flung the lead ship – masts splintered, lanyards snapped and sails in tatters – onto the rocky shore to the north of Cair Paravel with the terrible rending crash of shivering timbers. The second wave smashed into its stern, lifting it again and pushing it further inland, its hull being ground open and the deck heeling over as the other ships were beached around it. The waves sucked back as the storm howled above them, grinding the ships to matchwood on the teeth of Narnia, as the Lord of the Western Wild and the Governor of the Lone Islands leaped onto the Narnian shore, their armies a stride behind them.

"For Narnia and for Aslan!" roared Edmund over the howl of the wind and the crash of breaking timbers. "For your homeland and loved ones!"

"For the Lone Islands and King Edmund!" screamed Elizabeth. "The Lion! _The Lion!_"

High above the center of the battle, Peter looked over Eruanne's left shoulder and smiled as he saw his brother's armies – five hundred swords – disembark from wrecked ships and charge the flanks of the enemy army. Over his Marshal's right shoulder he could see the running column of Lucy's armies – his sister in the vanguard with great gray lupine shapes loping alongside her, and the long train of the southern cats and the western Centaurs strung out behind.

For a second, he could imagine he was looking down on a painted land with paper and wooden armies marching over it, such was the dizzying sense of scale and height. But then Eruanne's massive muscles flexed beneath his thighs and he remembered exactly where he was. He drew Rhindon and pointed downwards, clapping Eruanne on the shoulder with his gauntleted hand. She screeched an affirmation, folded her glorious wings, and dived.

Lucy – sat astride Edmund's foaming battle-destrier – came to a skidding halt in the middle of the crescent of tree-stumps that had expanded the clearing to the north of the Cair; the trees cut by the Black Dwarfs for the construction of the siege engines now battering the walls of the city. Behind her, Centaurs drew into a solid line of sweating, muscled flesh and rain-slick armor, lance-tips flashing and gleaming with the lightning crackling overhead, while the wolves of the Lantern Waste slunk and snarled on either side.

The anguish of the western armies was clear, for many of those who had remained behind to defend their lands were the Dryads of the east – and it was those groves that stood silent now. The certain knowledge that not only those whose homeland they had sworn to defend were dead, but also that their own sacred groves were defenseless before their enemies skewered their souls with agony, but one tempered with an ineffable rage. Beside Lucy, Nicodemus raised his head and snarled at her. "Orders, your majesty?" It didn't sound as if he would listen to any that lay outside a very narrow, blood-slick, framework.

The youngest Queen did not disappoint him – the ugliness and horror of open war, what her brothers and so many others had tried to shield her from, washed over her and scoured away anything that might have tempered her own terrified anger. She set her teeth, the muscles in her narrow jaw flexing and bulging with the tension within her. There was no pretty response to this, no elegance would win the day here. This wasn't romantic, this wasn't glorious – this was visceral cruelty given form. "I have no interest in prisoners," she said shortly. "Kill them all."

"With pleasure," growled Nicodemus, flinging back his head and howling. As one, the army of the west rushed past the Queen and her bodyguard and poured down the slope into the flanks of their enemies. But an answering howl – dark and grim and terrible – rose from the heart of those forces; a mocking challenge to the Marshal of the West and one that would have to be answered by one greater than he.

Like pearls coming off a necklace, the Moorland elite dipped their wings and banked out of the air, stalling and sliding through space sideways. The sideslip lost them altitude with dizzying speed and Peter, clinging one-handed to Eruanne's mane and with the gleaming blade of Rhindon pointing like a harpoon straight down, felt the air whip past him, dragging tears from his eyes and sending them flicking up and away. Water splashed in his face as he fell faster than the rain, hurtling down towards the massacre at the gate.

Of the dozen Dancing Lawn elite, less than half remained alive. Four enormous Giants, their boots and clubs bloody and their hideous faces guffawing sadistically, jumped and stamped like cruel boys with kittens. The ram was forgotten, and the rent and twisted oak and iron of the Gate had earned a brief respite. But, when the last cat fell, so too would the Gate mere moments afterward.

Peter's weeping eyes glanced to his left, saw his sister handing precariously from the mouth of the gargoyle and the Harpies and bats swooping down onto the helpless defenders, threatening to spill into the melee outside. He bellowed an order to Eruanne and her cadre, then let go of her mane and unclamped his thighs from her waist and fell free through the air.

He tumbled for a second as the Gryphons sped towards the keep, before he orientated himself in the air and got both his hands to the hilt of his sword, it leading his headlong plunge though the air, his full weight behind it. Had his plan not been so clear, so obvious and certain in his mind he would not have had time to take the blade vanishing – point, foible, middle and forte – into the top of the Giant's skull, only stopping as the crossguard smacked into the thick bone. He twisted his body, arresting his fall to land – firm-footed and sure – on the Giant's shoulders and then spun the blade free, corkscrewing a bloody track through the monster's now-churned brain. Under Peter's iron-shod feet, the monster began to topple.

Sweeping through the air, Marshal Euranne and the Moorland elite dodged sparks and flying gledes, here and there swooping under collapsing archways and bursting through the smoke with metallic screechings howling from their leonine throats. The Gryphons impacted with the Harpies and bats above the great courtyard of the Cair, smashing into the smaller leather-winged creatures, feathered wings and tails splaying and braking in the air as they grasped the monsters in their talons. Eruanne grabbed a Harpy in her eagle-like foretalons and pinioned a claw-full of bats in each tiger-striped rear paw. Like a hawk taking a starling, she caught a final bat in her beak and simply folded her wings and fell, as final and heavy as lead.

Peter reversed his grip on the blade, holding it dagger-like in his right fist and with his left palm thrusting against the pommel so hard the imprint of the lion's head was tooled into the leather of his gauntlet, and leaped from the shoulder of the tumbling Giant, using its forward momentum to fly through the air. The tip of Rhindon pierced another Giant's chest just below the sternum and – as it gasped and vomited blood – Peter angled the razor-edge of the blade and, like a pirate sliding down a sail, ripped open the great expanse of fat, hairy belly with his own weight as he fell.

He landed with an easy flex of his knees, rainwater streaming from his hair and stepping backwards as two Giants crashed to the ground amid a growing pool of black blood and glutinous entrails. He effortlessly unshipped his brilliant shield from his back and fitted it expertly on his arm as he shook the larger deposits of blood and gore from the blade. He angled the sword to let the torrential rain wash it clean and smiled winningly at the panther.

"Colonel Elikolani; I _thought_ I saw a pussycat," he grinned. She purred a welcome back at him, but he was already in motion, diving under the stamp of a boot and slashing through leather and metal spikes and stinking flesh. The huge monster howled in pain and leaped backwards, holding its injured foot in its meaty hands, an enormous club tumbling to the ground. "Go!" howled Peter, "I'll hold the Gate!" He stabbed sideways into the single ankle now holding the Giant upright and the thirty-foot monster screamed and tumbled like a stricken oak. "Get through the melee – guard Queen Lucy!" the High King ordered, "Ed'll want his elite!" Elikolani howled a response and her and the remains of her pride were gone in a second, sprinting west.

Undaunted, Peter looked beyond the creature five times his height and two hundred times his weight at the great mass of the army that faced the Cair, feeling the presence of the inviolate Gate at his back. "Come on," he whispered, as the Giant stomped towards him and the great horrific mass charged, "make me a legend!"

In the sky above the Cair, Harpies flung themselves around one of the Gryphons, pinioning his massive wings to his body. He tumbled and fell, struggling to unfurl his wings before he hit the ground – the Harpies did not care that they too would die when he crashed to the floor. The Witch's forces were numerous and their commanders could afford to spend their lives carelessly. Mere feet above the stone-flagged courtyard, now packed with panicking civilians ferrying water to the burning walls, his wings burst free, great gales gusting from them and sending Harpies flying. A single sweep of his magnificent wings and he rose, crushing the shoulder and pelvis of a pair of the bat-winged horrors in his claws before spiraling upwards to join the fight above.

Eruanne spread her wings at the last possible second, the Harpy in her claws impaled on the lance held by the statue of King Gale in the center of the courtyard, the bats in her paws crushed against his horse's rump. She ground her beak together, sawing through gristle and bone, and spat the two halves of the bat to the ground as she leaped back into the air, rejoining the whirling fight in the lashing rain above.

Colonel Ferrox – commander of the Moorland elite, charged with the defense of the monarchs over and above petty concerns such as the safety of Narnia, the Cair or Aslan himself, a praetorian in every sense of the word – went through the aerial dogfight as if it wasn't there, battering anything that came too close aside with a sweep of his midnight black wings. He reached Susan just as the marble fangs of the gargoyle gave way and the dagger slipped from its gushing mouth. The Queen slid backwards, tumbled, and fell. Her hand snapped outwards, the dagger spinning away and burying itself unerringly in the chest of a Harpy, even as she began to plummet to her death.

And then the Gryphon's claws caught her by the cloak and bit into the backplate of her armor "Colonel Ferrox, ma'am!" he roared above the great swooping beats of his wings, "Moorland elite! I'll have you on the ground in a moment!" Susan shook her head, reaching for the arrows at her hip.

"Not a chance, Colonel," she snarled, spitting and blinking water out of her face, "My place is up here!" She drew the string of the bow to her ear and knocked a Harpy out of the sky. Sensing the reluctance of the Gryphon to sweep back into the combat with the Queen in his claws, she laughed into the face of the storm. "Come on, Ferrox – you want to live forever?"

As soon as the Gryphons had howled into the aerial melee above him, General Oreius had found himself hard-pressed – the forces of the Witch had now reached the walls in greater numbers, and even his carefully-prepared killing zones and traps and plans could not avail against such a weight of numbers. Around him, Red Dwarfs and Dryads and Fauns were falling, driven back by the brutish monsters that faced them. Still, he fought, his swords hacking and slicing, rearing and plunging, his great iron-shod forefeet crashing down on the skulls and chests of his foes.

"Surrender, little Centaur!" bellowed a bull-headed horror, a great black-bladed ax arching down towards the General's head. Oreius gritted his teeth and blocked the attack, striking out with one of his own.

"I faced the Witch undaunted!" he roared, "While there is breath in my body I will see you and your kind dead!"

And then something tangled his hooves, jerking him off his feet and sending him crashing to the ground. He turned to see who had hobbled him, his eyes widening in shocked realization before the butt of the Minotaur's ax crashed into his temple, and he knew nothing more.

Edmund's forces had hit the flanks of the besieging army almost as soon as they made landfall, individual commanders leading their forces where they could. Hedera had vanished into the maelstrom instantly, her verdant figure lost in seconds in the driving rain and smoke-obscured battle. The human forces of the Islands – more humans than Narnia had seen in a century – were advancing in determined ranks behind Elizabeth. The remains of Edmund's crusade force were charging forward - pure, unsullied, legitimate hatred in their eyes - behind Michael and the remaining Captains.

Edmund loped forward alone, with only the wolves of the Lantern Waste elite surrounding him. The forces of the Witch seemed to draw back from the slight figure in the buckskin and amber armor, his gray eyes flashing and his lupine packmates to either side. From the other side of the battlefield, the unmistakable howl of Nicodemus came, followed in a cacophonous mingling by that of Drax and Cyan and all the rest. Edmund's lips twisted savagely, baring his teeth in something that a human might have called a smile but absolutely was not.

And then from the heart of the Witch's army an answering howl burst – a howl dark and dreadful and which told the tale of why the Witch's forces had not fought them. The traitor wolves of the Western Wild, the Witch's pack, mocked the Lantern Waste elite and dared them to meet them in one final battle.

Edmund had sprinted to atop a great jutting shoulder of rock, his naked blade gleaming in his fist and goading arrows to strike him. Without warning, he flung back his head and howled – a long, ululating note that rang from the walls of the storm and the Cair, echoing over the battlefield.

There wasn't a wolf on the battlefield that didn't know what that meant, or wouldn't respond to it one way or another. A call to arms, a challenge, a rallying-cry - unmistakable and irresistible. Beside Lucy, Nicodemus and the rest looked up with imploring eyes.

"Your majesty . . ." began Nicodemus, wishing he had the time and she had the understanding to explain what this meant to him. The youngest Queen smiled down at the wolves around her.

"Go where your heart is," she said simply. The wolves hesitated, torn between pack loyalty and their oaths to their Alpha. Lucy's own bodyguard – the charming warrior-fauns of the Glasswater elite – had been left behind in the Lantern Waste. They were just too slow and now too far away . . . they could not leave this little pup undefended. And then Elikolani and her troupe leaped out of the flashing melee that surrounded them and skidded to a sarcastic halt on the muddy ground.

"Get you gone, big bad wolf," purred the Colonel, impudently and humanly winking a single green eye at him. "We'll handle here." Swiftly bowing their heads in thanks, the Lantern Waste elite sprang into the storm, running through the melee faster than a horse could gallop.

On the eastern side of the battle, fighting alongside Elizabeth and her troops, Rapine heard that howl and – despite himself – his ears pricked up and his tail wagged. Elizabeth, her silver sword weaving a net of actinic light and with rainwater cascading out of her ebony hair, turned to face her friend.

"If you need to go . . ." she said softly. He blinked his eyes, and then shook his head.

"I turned from that path a long time ago, my lady," he said simply. For a second, wolf and human looked at each other and they both understood. And then the moment passed as the battle swept back over them again, Rapine's claws and teeth flashing and Elizabeth's blade rising and falling like the sea.

High above the Cair, Susan hung from Ferrox's claws, her toned muscles flexing and moving in sympathy with his swoops and dives, moving against the air as if it were water, feeling the high- and low-pressure waves set up by his beating wings as she would currents in the sea. Her hands worked of their own volition, plucking arrows from her quiver, nocking them, drawing the flights to her cheek and letting fly. Around her, the six Gryphons – the elite of the elite, the finest shock-troops Narnia could muster – clawed bats and Harpies out of the air. Susan's arrows reaped a bloody harvest of their own and it would be a matter of moments before the aerial battle was won.

A Harpy ducked under the snap of the Colonel's beak and clawed at the Queen, who jerked back as much as she could, her arrow shot going wide. Enraged at being made to miss such an easy target, she kicked out, feeling thin, brittle bones shatter under her booted heels. As the winged monster tumbled away, trying to unfold its wings, she shot it through the head for good measure. "Nearly got yourself killed there, your majesty!" chided Ferrox, "For Aslan's sake, let me set you down!"

"Nearly," hissed Susan through gritted teeth and drawing another arrow back, "only counts with horseshoes."

In the center of the battlefield, surrounded on all sides by the fight between the Narnians and the besieging armies, the Lantern Waste elite met the traitorous wolves of the Western Wild in a swirling maelstrom of fur and fangs and claws. Amid the lashing rain and illuminated by the crashing lightning, lupine bodies leaped and jumped, growling and howling. To those who fought nearby – Minotaur and Dryad, Faun and Ogre – there was nothing to choose between one gaunt gray shape and another; all were lean and scarred, hard-bitten with war and the frost of endless nights on bare mountains and in naked forests. It could only be scents, impossibly fine and indistinct, that marked friend from foe – and even if their nostrils had been keen enough that would have remained beyond the comprehension of those who watched.

For the battle-lines were not drawn in the spaces between families and brothers, but rather between ideologies and beliefs. Sons fought mothers, fathers dragged down daughters. A war a thousand years in the fighting – since the days when the Witch had offered her terrible pact to the wolves of the Lantern Waste and some had accepted it, since the great treachery that had made the name of the wolves anathema and driven those still loyal to Aslan to the Western Wild as the Everwinter had come to Narnia, since Edmund had made his great treaty and offered redemption for them all – came to an end amid torrential rain and as far from its starting point as one could be and still remain in Narnia.

The one non-wolf in the fight, Edmund, Lord of the Western Wild, Duke of the Lantern Waste, leaped and dived and snarled as well as any of them, his blade spinning and chopping leaving red-stained tracks in its wake. He alone could have fought in there – for he knew each and every one of the wolves intimately, knew their hopes and fears and loves and dreams and wants and needs. His teeth were bared, his blood was up and his eyes flashed yellow in the crackling storm.

A brace of wolves knocked the Alpha off his feet, crashing down onto the churned ground in a spray of mud and shattered amber. He kicked out, shattering ribs with a strength he scarcely knew he possessed as he grabbed a wolf by the jaws and savagely twisted. With a howl that his pack answered, he hurled the twisted corpse away, leaping to his feet and shaking mud and blood from his dark hair.

Cyan was pinned beneath three wolves, her flesh rent and her fur hanging in tatters from one shoulder. Drax sprang, his massive jaws closing on the nape of a neck. The enormous muscles of his neck and back flexed and he hurled the other wolf away as if he were a puppy. Edmund – his sword lost somewhere amid the crimson mire – grabbed the upper jaw of another of the wolves and wrenched it back and away with a hideous crack. The final wolf made the mistake of turning to face the Alpha and died as Cyan throated him for his pains.

Edmund growled a friendly affirmation at Cyan – there was no way of telling her, not right now, not with them fighting like this, that she was the new Colonel of the Lantern Waste elite. Right now, there wasn't a single distinction between any of them – not from Alpha to Omega, not between Nicodemus and the youngest pup who had never seen Jadis. They were not even individuals – they were greater than that; they were one being, a collective entity of sire and whelp and friend and lover. A pack. The wolves of Narnia and the Western Wild.

At the Gate, Peter ducked under the clumsy sweep of the final Giant's club, laughing into the skirl of the wind and rain as it caught a Minotaur in the chest and sent it flying in a crackle of bone. He'd already goaded it into smashing the chest of its fallen fellow and he whirled through the rain, leaving trails of dry air in his wake and rivers of water flowing down his muscular arms, tearing out its hamstring and calf with a devastating series of figure of eight slashes. The creature tumbled and – as it did so – Peter took it across the throat with a casual reverse swing of Rhindon. Without even looking, he span the blade and stabbed behind him, twisting the blade savagely in the guts of an Ogre and disemboweling it.

A terrible sizzling, like the breakfast of an army hissing in a hundred frying pans, assailed his ears. There was a red-stained shadow falling on him, growing larger by the instant, and he snapped his head up. What he saw would have frozen a lesser man where he stood, but the High King had time to desperately roll and dive in a last-ditch attempt to get out of the way.

The great ballista shot – a composite mass of rocks bound together with iron and soaked in burning pitch – crashed into the Gate with a sickening crunch and a terrible explosion. Canisters of sorcerous alchemical fire burst open, igniting instantly in the greasy, dull flame of the smoky tar, flaring suddenly bright and bringing false dawn to the Gate of the Cair. Stone and iron sundered with the fireball, wood shattering and burning. Minotaurs and Ogres flew like dolls as the Gate collapsed into burning ruin, the towers on either side collapsing into hissing piles of wreckage as the rain lashed down on the hot stone. Battering ram and bodies alike were a tangled mass of burning wood and fused bone and metal for twenty yards from where the Gate had stood, the air thick with the stench of roast mutton and scorched hair. Nothing living remained.

The fire was quick-burning, a magician's trick designed to allow immediate storming of whatever it had broken. Darkness fell; the torrential rain turning what few bonfires remained into geysers of hot smoke and dirty tongues of dark fire. What little sun filtered through the rain clouds was masked by the great fume of smog and smoke and stone dust that rose like the banners of the Witch's forces. A great Minotaur, garbed in hideous armor encrusted with runes that pained the eyes to look upon, raised his ax and bellowed.

"The boy lies dead, the Gate is broken! The Cair is ours! _Advance!_" With a ragged, disgusting roar torn from a thousand throats, the army charged for the undefended civilians in the courtyard.

On the crest of the slope that marked the western edge of the battle plain, at the very edge of the wounded forest, Queen Lucy looked on in horror at her brother's fall, sat astride a horse that twitched and stamped his feet, wanting to be in the battle. At his hooves Elikolani, Sutta, Carmit and the rest of the surviving Dancing Lawn elite sat on their haunches with an air of abstracted disinterest, methodically licking their paws and watching the dire combat unfold beneath them. But to anyone who knew anything about cats, their frantically twitching tails told of where they wanted to be.

Queen Lucy might have been young. She might have been shielded from the horrors of war. She might have been ordered _specifically_ by her brothers and elder sister to never get involved in a battle. But, right now, she didn't care a fig. She looked down at the Centaurs of the west and the cats of the south and the few animals of her own forces engaged in frantic battle with her country's enemies, and then looked up to see her surviving brother fighting barehanded against wolves and her sister hanging from a Gryphon's claws. Her little mouth hardened and her brown eyes narrowed to determined dark slits.

"Narnia will _not_ die while I live!" she exclaimed suddenly, and kicked down with her heels. The battle-destrier responded before she had really told him to, and the Dancing Lawn elite were so swiftly by her side they were ahead of her in a heartbeat. Lucy's sword – a shortened copy of Rhindon made by the master weaponsmith of the Cair specifically for her – sparkled from its scabbard a second before she and her bodyguard crashed into the melee.

Peter – bruised, battered, his armor scorched to his skin and his lungs full of smoke – shouldered his way from under the fragments of the ram's fire-proof housing and stood, swaying slightly and drawing on reserves he didn't know he had. He glanced over his shoulder at the great gap in the wall behind him, at the soft underbelly of Cair Paravel and Narnia defended only by a tangled ruin of roasting rubble and its High King, and leaped onto the largest of the tumbled stones. The bulk of the Witch's army faced him.

"My name is Peter and I am the Rock of Aslan!" he thundered as the horde charged. "Break on me like water!"

Elsewhere on the battlefield, the woman in the armor of the last Queen of Narnia and whose face was as much a mirror for her beauty as any pool had been fought alongside the ancient wolf who had been her likeness' bosom companion, the pup she had raised and cuddled when the nightmares got too much. The two of them fought together in a way they never got a chance to one hundred years before when the Everwinter came to Narnia, blade and fangs flashing in the storm rain and watching living water cascade down and wash away the ice and snow.

And, suddenly, Elizabeth realized

She realized as she hacked down a Minotaur and decapitated something she did not even recognize, as she kicked a Dwarf a good three yards and smashed the teeth of a Cruel with a left-handed punch. She was here not so much to save Narnia, but to save herself. She hadn't been brought here to fight in this battle and make these friends and save this nation; she had been brought here for herself. She had been brought here to become the sort of woman who _would_ do this; to be worthy of the silver-white armor she had been given and melt-water baptism that had been her journey from the Silver Citadel.

What she was doing wasn't the cause, wasn't the reason - this was simply the effect, the symptom. She might very well be the new Swanwhite to Narnia, paying a redemptive price for her treachery in allowing the nation to survive even encased in ice and snow, but - more importantly – she was the new Elizabeth.

A Minotaur locked blades with her for a second, bellowing a tide of rotting flesh stinkingly into her face. She set her jaw and narrowed her eyes. "I hope you realize," she smiled grimly as she disengaged her sword and disemboweled the monster, "this is all about me."

As she took a second to assimilate her position on the battlefield, she noticed that she and Rapine had fought their way almost to the walls of the Cair - ahead of her, the ruins of the Gate were still shrouded in smoke and flame. Less than thirty strides away across the surface of the battlefield pockmarked with the detritus of her and Rapine's advance the Lantern Waste elite and the Western Wild traitors were locked in brutal combat. Edmund, somehow thrown clear of the central melee, was stooping to fish his sword out of the mire, scanning his immediate horizon for more foes.

From out of the fog of war, Hedera appeared – her hair a writhing mass of leaves and her eyes as red as the blood that splattered her. Edmund looked up as she approached.

"How goes it?" he asked, laboring to draw oxygen into his lungs. Hedera lowered her eyes, looking embarrassed.

"Your majesty, we will win this battle," she said tightly. And then looked him briefly in the eyes, turning away at the last second. "Your majesty," she began hesitantly, "I must beg your forgiveness." Edmund raised an eyebrow as she continued. "I have spoken ill of you and your family, of your species." She held out a hand. "I ask for your pardon."

"Hedera," smiled Edmund, offering his hand, "you are forgiven for any malice you may have borne me or mine. But," he added with a wry grin, "I hardly think now is the best time." Hedera's lips crinkled into the hard line of a holly leaf.

"Oh," she said, as vine-tough tendrils lashed out from her forearm and wrapped around the King's wrist, pinioning his hand, "I think it is."

The jerk on his wrist - the power of a hundred years of vines compressed into a single instant - nearly wrenched Edmund's arm from his socket. It threw him a good ten yards, smashing him into the muddy ground with a sickening thud, his sword scattering loose. Dazed and barely conscious, he was dimly aware of the Dryad leaping for him, her thorn-claws ready to tear his flesh from his bones. "Varden missed with his ambush in the Waste, and I needed you on Doorn - but now you are mine, boy!"

And then, at the signal of the Dryad's treachery, the face of the battle changed. The battle above the Cair was all-but-won, at the Gate the High King was a legend given form against whom no blade could bite and which no weapon could lay low. Carving deep into the heart of the besieging army the forces of Lucy, Edmund and Elizabeth had the edge in numbers, leadership, skill and determination.

But something shifted as the Dryad's true colors were revealed. The remains of the Dancing Lawn elite suddenly found themselves fighting not just the monsters of the Witch, but defending their young charge against attacks from those they would have called friend. It was not as if they sided with their enemies - for they fought their way through them to get to the Queen - but rather as if the war was being used as a cover for regicide, an opportunity Elikolani feared with a sinking heart might have been engineered all along.

At the ruined Gate, Peter was a marvel and a tower of strength - he pitted his sword and skill against the hideous bull-headed horror that lead the assault and in less than a dozen heartbeats it lay headless on the floor. In the scant seconds of respite the terror of that deed bought him, he watched with delight as a wedge of Narnian forces detached themselves from the melee in the center of the battlefield and charged towards his position. He smiled and leaped back into the fray – he was enough of a legend for now; some aid would be welcome.

He was unprepared for the attack that came - brutal and terrible and treacherous. His armor rang with blows and a few slid past his unsuspecting defense, one driving him to his knees as it opened a slash bone-deep above his left eye. It was only the fact the Minotaurs saw the Dwarfs and Dryads - hissing their hatred of the human invaders - as enemies that saved his life, for they turned on the Narnians and hacked them down, buying the High King enough time to stagger to his feet and realize the terrible task that lay before him.

Hedera's claws were inches away from the exposed throat of the semi-conscious King, the Dryad snarling her anger, when Elizabeth's sword swept into the combat and hacked her hand off at the wrist. "Traitor!" she screamed, pressing the attack on the Dryad. The tree-woman laughed.

"You call me traitor, invader?" she snarled, "We don't need you - Narnia is for the Narnians! Aslan has driven out the Witch's forces and we shall finish this! We shall, the native Narnians! We don't _need_ the brood of Eve!" Elizabeth hacked again at the Dryad, the creaking smash of wood and splattering of sap echoing over the battlefield, and Hedera staggered back.

And then the Dryad caught Swanwhite's sword in her single remaining hand and snapped it six inches from the hilt. For a splintered second, Elizabeth looked at the sundered steel in wonder - and then gaped as, with a writhing of tendrils and oozing sap, Hedera's other hand grew back.

"Stupid little human-girl!" hissed the Dryad, vines erupting from nowhere and wrapping around her throat, lifting her - gasping for breath and with her vision dimming to gray - off her feet. "Do you have any idea how much power I have, here on the ground of Narnia? I will cleanse this land of the human filth; we shall have no King save Aslan." Elizabeth couldn't hear her over the roaring of blood in her ears, her hands scrabbled at nothing and her eyes rolled back in their sockets. She knew she was about to die and then - seconds after she did - Edmund would. Desperately, she tore at the vines encircling her throat, trying to get oxygen into her lungs, but it was useless.

Alone among the monarchs, only Susan - high above the battlefield and surrounded only by the praetorians and sworn enemies - was not exposed to arch treason. Yet it was perhaps fate that exposed her to a danger as great as those which faced her siblings, if not greater.

For, smashing out of the cloud and smoke and fume, punching through the driving rain and leaving a gaping rent torn in the thunderclouds through which the sunlight poured, a great red Dragon swept onto the battlefield. Its wings blotted out what little light there was and cast a pall of darkness over the Cair. One hundred feet, maybe, from its horned snout to the tip of its forked tail and with wings that spanned that distance or more, the terror of its coming turned every Narnian heart to water.

A Dragon - the most ancient and terrible of the creatures of Narnia, something so hideous and horrible that not even the Witch had possessed them in her armies. Here was a creature that could break the backs of armies and lay entire nations to waste - a potent symbol of evil power perhaps greater than the Witch and older.

Hedera's pact had not been with the darkness - not intentionally. She had done what she had done in the name of Aslan, believing it was best for Narnia and those she loved and protected. But now, seeing this crimson behemoth drawn to slaughter like a carrion crow, even she briefly wondered what her motives might really have been.

There was a moment, an instant when she might have taken a different path, when everything might have turned out very differently. An instant for redemption, for reconciliation, for alliance in the face of the true evil. But then the pride that had let the first Swanwhite die and Rapine be stone for a century reasserted itself - this was a sign, a sign of the corruption of the humans. Evil came to claim its own. She would break this arrogant little human girl, and kill the boy, and then - by the power of Aslan and for his glory - would destroy the Dragon.

With a sweep of its wing, the Dragon scattered the Moorland elite like butterflies, Eruanne tumbling like a wind-blown leaf to crash against the wall of the Cair with bone-jarring force. Colonel Ferrox tumbled in the air, righted himself and saw with horror the glowing flames flickering behind the monster's massive teeth.

Desperately, he turned his body in the air, placing himself between Susan and the terrible gout of flame that poured from the Dragon's jaws. Rainwater superheated to steam instantly with a shriek, striking his body a splintered second before the flame did, broiling and cooking his flesh.

And then the blue-edged mass of crimson smoke and inferno engulfed him and he died instantly, his flesh charring and carbonizing, his bones cracking in the heat and the stink of burning fur and feathers filling the air.

As the Dragon underscored its power with a single flick of its massive tail, demolishing one of the towers of the Cair and settling on the resulting pile of rubble to survey the battlefield, Susan fell. Her golden armor gleamed in a lance of light that poured through the rent the Dragon's passage had made in the clouds, clothing her with the sun. She could feel the ground rushing up to meet her back and knew, with a detachment that surprised her, she was about to die. Swiftly, mechanically, she reached for a final arrow and bent her bow for the last time, aiming at the Dragon's eye.

Up until now, Michael's participation in the battle had been minor - he had lead Edmund's crusade when the boy-King charged forward with his pack to face their nemesis. He had fought well, but mechanically. There was something plucking at his awareness, a sense that he was here for a reason.

As soon as the Dragon smashed through the cloudbank and scattered the Gryphons, he knew what that reason was. And as Susan tumbled out of the sky, he knew what he had to do.

He had no more time for games - a Dragon was a terrible foe, so terrible that no-one but he and Aslan in all of Narnia knew just how terrible. He did not have time to hack his way through the hundreds of troops - enemies and allies - that lay between him and the specific pieces of tumbled rocks that would kill the Queen.

He extended his left hand, fingers spread. Power crawled and gathered at the corners of awareness; the whiskers of the cats twitched and sparked, the fur of the wolves stood on end and the leaves of the Dryads rustled with uncertainly.

And then, as if an invisible plow were being driven as straight as an arrow from where he stood to the falling Queen, those who stood in his way were thrown backwards and away, tossed by unseen hands and a power that was rarely unleashed. And through that corridor now deserted of bodies, Michael ran with inhuman speed, his sword sheathed and his arms reaching.

With Hedera's vines wrapped around her throat, Elizabeth was all-but-unconscious, her perceptions fogging and her limbs slack, her brain beginning to die. And then she came halfway back to consciousness with the impact of hard ground on her back resetting her lungs and heart and dragging air into her body. Her eyes snapped open even as she tugged dry and desiccating vines from her throat.

Rapine had leaped into Hedera, chomping through the vines around Elizabeth's throat and kicking her away from the Dryad. Now he stood atop Hedera, his claws and teeth ravening and rending, leaves and sap flying as she screamed in agony.

"Traitor!" howled Rapine. "Stinking traitor! You betrayed our plans to the Governor! You told Varden where King Edmund would be! Why?" Vines sprung from the ground around the two of them, suddenly wrapping around the wolf and hauling him off the Dryad, lifting him into the air spreadeagled

Hedera vaulted to her feet. "Because I believe in a free Narnia, puppy-dog." And then she snapped her fingers and the vines tightened, pulling Rapine's limbs in different directions with a horrible creak of bone and sinew. With a howl of agony and an explosive welter of fur, viscera and gore, the greatest wolf of his age was torn into bloody gobbets.

The blood of her friend splattering on her face took the last of the dizziness from Elizabeth's mind, and she leaped to her feet, an incoherent roar of anguish on her lips. She snatched up a discarded ax that lay within reach of her arm, tears pouring down her face as she charged the Dryad, blinded by rage and grief.

She had forgotten Edmund who - only now beginning to raise himself to his hands and knees - was still vulnerable and still with enemies living on the field. Hedera - a cruel and calculating smirk on her face - indulgently dodged the first wild swing from Elizabeth's ax, the five points of her newly-grown claws punching through the repaired portion of Swanwhite's armor, gouging thorn wounds in the human's side. Hedera stepped backwards again, forcing Elizabeth to press her attack and move further and further from the King on the floor - and the Dwarf leaping towards him with a cruel dagger in his fist. _How very appropriate,_ chuckled Hedera to herself.

Tumbling through the burning air, Susan hit the ground a moment before she thought she would have done, her arrow shot spoiled and her bow slipping from her hands. She realized a moment later that she was not dead and that she, in fact, was lying easily in someone's arms. She turned her head to see the impassive and blandly handsome face of the Warlord of Narnia inches from her own. "Michael . . ?" she began.

Michael had caught Susan with no time to spare, and now found himself hampered with a winded woman lying in his arms. With awful strength he grasped the linked steel belt that secured her long armored skirt and ripped it, chain-links splitting and snapping with metallic pings and groans. He jerked on the skirt, unrolling it from around her as he shoved hard with his other hand, sending her flying out over the sea.

The second fall in as many seconds, together with the bracing salt-tang of the booming surf below assaulting her nostrils, sharpened Susan's mind to a perfect knife blade. She did not know why Michael had tossed her into the ocean rather than simply dumping her on the ground, but she trusted the Warlord of Narnia implicitly and knew there had to be something waiting for her at the end of this fall. Of course, the first thing that would be waiting for her would be the cruel winter ocean being whipped into an iron-hard frenzy by the howling, lashing storm. _Sweet Aslan,_ she prayed silently as she angled her body downwards, her fists ready to smash a hole for her head and shoulders, her head tucked between her biceps, _array me in your sight._

The Dwarf stabbed downwards, the dagger biting into Edmund's armor, slicing down towards his kidneys. The leather parted with a hiss and fluid leaked from the puncture. The force of the blow knocked him to his face, but he turned a moment later and looked the Dwarf in the face with unabashed rage.

"Nice try," he snarled, smashing the Dwarf across the jaw with his elbow. Bones and teeth dislodged as Edmund stood, brandy leaking from the punctured and ruined flask over his hips. He kicked out savagely and snapped a few ribs in the Dwarf's chest, rolling his sinewy neck to wake himself up. Around him, half-a-dozen of Hedera's Dwarfs looked at him with fear in their wrinkle-encrusted eyes.

"Take him!" howled Hedera, causing Elizabeth to turn and realize her mistake. But there was nothing the woman could do to help Edmund - and that distraction cost her dear as the Dryad grabbed her wrist and span the ax clear, smashing her in the stomach with a punch that dented her armor and drove the air from her lungs.

The Dwarfs looked unsure - King Edmund was unarmed, but there were legends of his fighting ability, and they had no desire to find out the truth of them. Edmund's eyes narrowed. "Do what the woman says," he growled, half-crouching, his lips drawn back into a lupine grin and his hands hooked into claws, "_take me!_"

That was when the screaming started.

At the Gate, Peter rose from his knees and leaped into the melee, realizing the only chance the civilians inside the Cair had was for him to defend it against any who might threaten him; for now that the Gate was fallen, he was the Gate of the Cair whom those who desired entry - for good or ill - would have to pass. He was outnumbered, overextended and wounded - attacked by hideous monsters and a great number of those who were once loyal to him; but even treachery and the limitless hatred of the far North was as nothing to the power of High King Peter with Rhindon in his hand. Whirling, chopping, punching and bellowing a deafening battlecry, he made three-score widows before the rest fell back, terrified, bloodied and broken.

The grip on Elizabeth's wrist was inexorable, buckling the armor and grinding the bones beneath. Hedera snarled, sensing victory moments away, as the human whimpered in pain. Something gave in her wrist and the ax dropped from nerveless fingers as the Dryad span her around, slamming her face first into an ivy-covered wall. Harsh leaves scraped at Elizabeth's eyes as her wrist was forced upward, the shoulder hyper-extended, bone grating on bone, the pain like a hot blade in her back.

"My vine, little girl," whispered Hedera in her ear, "I'll tear your arm from its socket and watch you bleed dry. I'm sure the iron'll be good for me." As if responding it its mistress, the ivy writhed under Elizabeth's face, tearing at her eyes and rustling through her hair.

Desperately, Elizabeth's free hand tugged her dagger free, driving it blindly backwards into the Dryad. She felt it penetrate, but it was like stabbing wood and the blade merely lodged there. She felt rather than heard Hedera chuckle and tug the knife free.

"Silly little human," she hissed, vines wrapping around Elizabeth's wrist and inexorably forcing her free hand against the stone wall of the castle. "Don't you yet understand what you face?"

Amid the ruin of another of the Cair's towers, Susan had barely tumbled out of Michael's arms before he snatched his sword back into two hands and leaped, agile as a salmon, up the rocks that formed the foundation of the ruined tower. Rocks and burning feathers were still falling around him – bringing to even him, especially him, perhaps, memories of an earlier time and a great loss others called a victory. Above him, the great red Dragon squatted on the ruins of the tower, smoke curling from its nostrils like a growing fire and twin pilot-lights glowing in its eyes. Huge and hideous and horrible, it gleamed down at him in armor shining like gold oiled with blood, a fog and fume of smoke and stone dust in the air. Its armored tail lashed like a lion's, smashing smaller rocks to flinders and uprooting trees.

For an instant, the merest instant, perhaps not measured in time at all but rather just in a shift in perception, Michael hesitated. He was not afraid – he did not really know the meaning of the word _fear_ except as an intellectual exercise; to desire a continuation of the _then_ rather than accept the _now_ – but there was perhaps a moment of uncertainty.

This was a Dragon – without a single shadow of a doubt, it was a metaphor cast in flesh. It was a stamp in bone and sinew and chitinous armor from the mold that had been made to encase something so great and terrible eyes could not behold it. Exactly as the machine of blood and bone and flesh that he was sending hurtling up rocks with a blessed blade in its fist was a stamped-thing made to encase exactly the same.

With eyes of flesh he saw what he would have seen before time dawned had he looked with eyes of flesh then and there. Was this the same thing as he had faced then? Or was it merely an empty stamp, flesh through and through without that bright jewel at the center? Bound by his own limitations in the here and now – and even bound to the very concepts of _here and now_ by them – he could not tell.

And, if it were, was his victory assured? Had his victory been assured the first time? He had never known defeat – for he had always fought the battles he was told to fight, that he knew he must. But was that a guarantee of victory, or merely an assurance of glory if it were a loss? His Master was with him in the way He always had been – in the very fiber of the Being He had created from the jewels of bright fire, but independent and removed. He was the very Will of his Master, but with a Will of his own. The same could be said of his brothers – even _he_.

Was there really any difference between him and Man?

But, in that very instant, there came a new realization – or as new as can come to an eternal being, beyond space and time. It did not matter if the creature that perched there, awaiting him, was cyclopean flesh wrapped in Vulcanian armor around the Great Bright Jewel of the Heavens. It did not matter if he were bound by the weaknesses and limitations of this very world.

There was a Dragon there – it could kill the woman he was here to defend. He remembered his brother with the boy and his ridiculous dog, his other brother singing songs in that little carpenter's workshop. How afraid must they have been, if this was fear now, to do something they had never done before?

He had already won this battle, against the original Being that had not been encased in the stamped flesh of a mold, but rather made that mold as the universe crashed around on him. This thing – be it a copy or the original – was something he had defeated before.

_All I've got to do is kill a Dragon?_

And then the voice of his Master came to him with the clarity of a bell. _Just because it is something that can be done does not make it unnecessary._

Michael swept the sword high and brought it whistling down on the Dragon's snout; its head crashed sideways with the blow and battle was joined.

In the battle surrounding Lucy, Sutta was all but overwhelmed by the scampering People of the Toadstools that had appeared in the wet darkness of the churned forest, Carmit and Elikolani locked in combat with Minotaurs and Ogres. On the back of Edmund's battle stallion, Lucy lashed outwards with her scale model of her brother's sword, her face blanched and terror written on every line. She drew her sword back to strike a Black Dwarf looking to gut her horse with a wickedly cruel dagger, and found her wrist held immobile.

She span in the saddle to see it was a Faun, one with gentle brown eyes so very like Mr Tumnus. The little horns and hooves and tail were all of a piece, and it might have been his brother to the young Queen's eyes. For a second, she hesitated, held static by strong muscles and her own loves.

And then the horse reared, putting his own barrel chest where the knife stroke that would have carved through Lucy's ribcage landed. With a terrible bubbling whinny, the valiant steed crumpled, with his last act crushing the Black Dwarf beneath his massive form.

Lucy tumbled, her wrist coming free but her sword falling from her hand. The Faun laughed and jumped towards her with a dagger in his hands. Frantically, Elikolani tried to leap to her defense, but a Minotaur caught her by the waist and smashed her into unconsciousness against the corpse of a Dryad.

The Queen's hand dived for her waist and snatched free the little dagger Father Christmas had given her, her dimpled fist driving it into the throat of the Faun. As the creature staggered away, blood bubbling from his wound and his lungs filling with fluid, Lucy pursed her lips and snapped a rebuke. "Mr Tumnus would be _very_ disappointed in you!"

Out in the bay, the impact with the water knocked the breath from Susan's body and had it not been for the coldness of the water and the mounting pressure as she sank like a stone, she would have passed out and never regained consciousness. As it was, she came to her senses a fathom or two down, reaching for the straps of her cuirass and expertly stripping the heavy armor off. For a second, she hung in the water, orientating herself and watching priceless treasures drift into the murky water.

A flash of color nearby, and another. She span in the water, turning to see the indistinct moving shape - iridescent colors and weaving shapes like seaweed around lithe human forms. A flick of a scaled tail pushed one of the mermen closer, his wide, intelligent eyes gazing at the beautiful human face floating in the pool of shadow that was its hair.

Communication underwater with the merfolk was not a simple matter - for although they had lovely voices and could - and did - speak with the citizens of the Cair as they pushed their heads from the ocean, speech was not possible underwater. So, the merman's skin flushed in rippling bands of color and his hands made expansive gestures, his salmon-pink gills pulsing as he breathed.

Susan - alone among her siblings, although it was on Edmund's to-do list - could understand the merman perfectly. Her face cycled through shock and horror, and then determination swept over it. With a few simple gestures, she made a request of the merman and - when he had handed her the whale-bone dagger with the handle inlaid with mother-of-pearl - she jack-knifed her body in the water and kicked her legs towards the underwater tunnels in the cliff-face.

They were narrow, only a meter or so wide for much of their length, and dark and it took all of Susan's courage to swim into the one she chose. It was insanity, swimming into a small narrow tunnel when there was a dimly-lit ocean surface above her and with her lungs were screaming for air. She blinked her eyes closed - it made no difference whether she had them open or not now she was in the tunnel - and forced herself to strive onwards.

Her head broke water almost silently and she opened her eyes, tilting her head back and blowing water out of her nose before she inhaled so she would not cough. She was floating in the pool in the lowest dungeons of the Cair, the one from where the water to fight the fires had come and where the merfolk came to speak with the Royal family. She swam silently over towards the edge of the pool and gently pulled herself up, peering over the low wall.

The merman had been right - in the dungeons of the Cair were General Oreius and many of his warriors, ones who would defend the monarchs with their lives - and deaths - if necessary. They were chained and bound, guarded by a number of Red Dwarfs and Fauns and Dryads; some of whom Susan recognized The merman had not known the reason behind the treachery, nor who was responsible, but he had been able to see it.

Realizing now what purpose Michael had thrown her into the heaving ocean for, and perhaps realizing just why she was the swimmer she was, Susan's emerald eyes measured inches and angles. She made her choice, slipped the dagger between her teeth, set her hands on the ledge and braced her muscles.

High above, amid the ruins of the Cair, the Dragon roared in Michael's face, uncoiling like a spring and flying towards him. He leaped over its head, bringing his sword crashing down on its shoulder as it turned in mid air and snapped its teeth shut where he had been a second before.

His sword span clear, ready to smash down on its forelimb and shear it off, but the creature simply swept one of its wings upwards, smashing Michael off his feet and into the air, every rivet of his armor rattling and his limbs flailing loose. With a sweep of its magnificent wings, the Dragon leaped into the air in a sulfurous gale, bringing its lashing tail around like a whip, catching the Warlord in the chest with the force of a thousand steam hammers.

Michael flew backwards, his armor rent and shattered, his limbs trailing behind him but his grip on the sword unbreakable. With a sickening crunch, he smashed into the wall of the Tower of Instruments, crashing through it in a welter of falling masonry and tumbling stone. He crashed through the armory in the lower floors, shattering display cases and scattering armor trees, and burst through the other wall, crashing to the ground in a heap of mangled armor

He stood as the monster swept down towards where he had landed, it realizing he was still a threat. His armor was in tatters, chain links broken and quarter-inch plate twisted and fissured like thin tin. With casual ease he tore the remains off his massive frame with his bare hands and then - unfurling his great golden and crimson wings and with his robes streaming behind him - leaped through the remains of the tower towards his foe.

The passage of Michael through the tower twice had weakened it too much and, with a protesting groan and cloud of rock dust, it began to heel over, slates slipping from the roof and the ivy encasing it being stretched and torn as stones tumbled. Her grip on Elizabeth's arm slackening, Hedera screamed in sympathetic pain.

Elizabeth tore her arms free and, spinning to face the Dryad, drove a fist into her face. She felt her bones crumple and agony shot up her arm from her wounded wrist, but Hedera gave ground. Rather than press her advantage, Elizabeth leaped backwards into the ruins of the shattered tower, reaching down into the wreckage of the armory to grab a weapon.

Out on the western side of the melee still raging in the clearing, Lucy frantically struggled to lift the stallion's head and hold her Cordial bottle. Sutta, in a howling frenzy she did not know she was capable of, had thrown off her fungal attackers and was standing snarling guard over the Queen and her downed steed. Carmit was protecting her Colonel, her muzzle smirched with more scars. Around them, the remaining few cats of the Dancing Lawn elite prepared to sell their lives as dearly as they could.

Deep in the dungeons of the Cair, Susan leaped from the pool, vaulting over the low wall to slam her booted heels into the chest of a Dwarf. She did not waste time with the dagger on him, snatching it from her teeth with her right hand and catching him by his collar with her left. She lifted him bodily with muscles tuned to perfection by the heaving sea and smashed him into a Faun running at her even as she cut down another Dwarf with a single slash across the throat.

She ducked and rolled, Dwarfish axes passing over her head, and sprang to her heels next to Oreius. Three slashes cut the ropes and released the General, and then she turned her attention to those on either side of him. Within moments, the sounds of full-scale battle echoed through the cellars of the castle.

The guards had the advantage of weapons, but the prisoners were more numerous and there were few in Narnia as skilled or strong as General Oreius. Less than a minute after it had begun, it was over. The massive Centaur touched his temple gingerly.

"What happened?" asked Susan, taking a sword from a dead Dwarf and tossing another to Oreius.

"Hedera," said the General, as if that explained everything. "She has sided with our enemies, or - more likely – merely wishes you and your family dead." Susan shook her head in wonder and horror.

"No matter," she said. "We must lead a sortie - the High King holds the Gate alone, and our enemies have the aid of a Dragon. If this treachery runs deep their foolishness may lead to the destruction of all of Narnia, not just myself and my family."

"Your majesty," said the whinnying voice of Niamh as she encouraged the Queen to mount, "you and your family _are_ Narnia." Susan smiled, swinging herself onto Niamh's back and leading her forces out of the dungeons at a trot.

In the churned mud of the battlefield the Dwarfs foolish enough to side with Hedera lay in broken heaps around the Lord of the Western Wild, one of their swords in his fist. Alone and undefended, Edmund could only raise his sword as half-a-dozen Minotaurs and Ogres charged him, bellowing terrible battlecries. "And _this_ is where I die," mused Edmund.

Cyan – limping on her wounded shoulder – and Drax sprinted back towards their Alpha, weariness forgotten, rage fueling the engine of their vengeance. Even as the monsters reached Edmund, Cyan and her husband crashed into the back of their skulls, rending and ravening. Out in the center of the field, the Lantern Waste elite and the traitors still fought in a heaving pack of gray fur and crimson blood; a battle it was impossible for an outsider to call or assist in.

Elizabeth grabbed a huge mace from the floor of the wrecked armory, swinging it at the Dryad double-handed and catching her in the chest. She felt something fracture and tear under the blow, great cracks appearing in Hedera's flesh. She drew back the mace for a second strike, only for Hedera to step forward and catch it in two hands. The two of them struggled with it for a moment, and then the Dryad smashed the woman in the sternum with the butt-end, knocking her back to clatter amid a suit of Calormen armor

Braced scimitars sparkled in Elizabeth's hands, weaving a complex web of light around her. Hedera smashed one sword into flinders of shattered steel with a single blow of the mace, and then screamed as the other sword shortened her arm by a foot. The mace fell to the floor as the wounded Dryad smashed Elizabeth across the jaw with a thorn-pointed fist, tearing bloody tracks and loosening teeth. The woman scattered across the rubble, her armor battered and covered in shattered stone. She grasped for a tall walking ax, using its long shaft to push herself to her feet.

In the castle's courtyard fire-fighting civilians scattered at the sound of pounding hooves as Susan, Niamh, Oreius and his Centaurs burst from the stairs that lead to the dungeon, galloping through the square in a hail of sparks struck from the flinty floor. The clouds had rained themselves out by now and the howling wind was scouring the sky clear, great patches of blue showing through the gray and lances of sunlight stabbing down onto the battle below.

Peter turned at the sound of hooves, effortlessly reaching behind him and swinging himself onto the back of the galloping Rocinante. "Form up on me!" he bellowed, immediately taking command from Susan. "Onward, onward! Vengeance for the fallen, vengeance for Narnia, vengeance for Aslan!" Behind the High King, the Centaurs and stallions drew into a tight wedge and galloped forward, crushing the myriad corpses beneath iron-shod hooves.

Swinging east, they drove a few stragglers before them, trampling enemies into the dust and mire, and arrived at Edmund's position just as the King was cutting down the last Minotaur. He knelt by his wounded Colonel and stroked her head, whispering things in a language none of them spoke. "Ed?" asked Peter. The younger man stood.

"Kill anything you desire save the wolves, the Dragon and the Dryad – their lives are forfeit to my command." He tossed away the short Dwarfish sword and accepted his own mud-smirched and amber-encrusted blade that Drax was bringing to him. He polished the weapon clean and saluted his brother. "I have business to attend to; win the war, High King over all Kings of Narnia." Peter returned the salute, and then galloped west with his train of Centaurs spreading behind him like wings. Edmund looked down at the two wolves at his feet and smiled the smile that wasn't. He threw back his head and howled his battlecry;

"_For the Lantern Waste and the Western Wild!_" And then the three of them charged back into the last battle of wolf against wolf in Narnia.

High above their heads, Michael and the Dragon swirled around each other, fifty-yard plumes of flame gouting past the feathered wings of the Angel, his face a mask of terrible beauty. The blessed sword gifted to him by his Master in response to a prayer smoked as it cut the air, crashing down on the wings and limbs of the Dragon, cutting into its scales.

A terrible knowledge flowed into Michael's mind - a knowledge there was a reason this thing was here right now. Narnia was a secondary concern - there was more to this than that. The fate of entire worlds hung - or _would hang_ - in the balance, more rested on this fight than any he had so far fought in Narnia. Suddenly, he realized Elizabeth was more important than he had hitherto realized, and certainly more so than she would ever expect.

He redoubled his efforts, drawing into areas of himself he had not drawn on since the dawn of time and the first great war he had been the siegemaster for had begun. He remembered the days when the cosmos was freer, when there were fewer walls and boundaries - and remembered the days when the ancient celestial tongue was heard over the whole of the Field of Arbol.

He braced his arm against the tip of the Dragon's chin, forcing its head back, and slashed with the sword. The keen edge of the blade, tempered by something finer and more enduring than iron, sliced easily through the scales and armor and hide, cutting into the sinews and veins and muscles of the creature, shattering the bone and ripping tendons. The sword burst free as he beat his magnificent wings, sending himself flying upwards - the Dragon's head hanging from his fist - as the monster crashed into the sea below with a bone-numbing crash and a great salt spray.

With a great sweep of his muscular arm, Michael threw the head of the great red Dragon an impossible distance, it landing in the center of the battlefield with a sickening crunch, crushing a Minotaur beneath it. "_Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus meis ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui, ad utilitatem quoque nostram totiusque Ecclesiae tuae sanctae,_" whispered Michael, and then he folded his wings and dived into the center of the battle, his sword reaping a bloody harvest.

Most of the fight had gone from the Witch's forces the moment the Dragon's head landed in a splatter of blood and gore - what sort of being could defeat a Dragon in single combat? That question was answered in the moment that took the rest of the fight out of them - for Michael crashed into their lines, passing through them like a hurricane of flame, a hail of spearpoints and a holocaust of swords. The Archangel of War came to Narnia, and none who could not look him in the face lived within reach of his blade.

The High King and his cohorts went through the center of the battlefield like an arrow from a bow, what few foes bared their path falling to Rhindon or Oreius' hooves. Within what seemed like moments Peter was hacking down the Minotaurs and Ogres who threatened his favorite sister and Susan was helping her pour cordial into the stallion's mouth while Niamh nuzzled him frantically with her muzzle and whinnied love into his ears.

"Your first battle, Lucy." Peter smiled down at his youngest sister, who was sobbing bitterly with the backwash of emotion while Susan cuddled her. "What do you think?" Lucy looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

"_Ugly,_" she sobbed.

Within the ruins of the Tower of Instruments, chessmen and maps crunching at her feet, Elizabeth wearily looked over at the Dryad, supporting herself with the haft of the ax. Her wrist was probably broken, definitely sprained. She'd wrenched her shoulder and knee, and - in addition to a thousand bruises and cuts - she could feel hot blood pouring from the side where the Dryad had clawed her. Even as she watched, Hedera shuddered and her wounds began to close, her arm growing back fresh and bright and spring-new. Elizabeth's shoulders slumped as Hedera laughed.

"You see my power, little human? Standing here, on the grass of Narnia?" Elizabeth set her teeth.

"Give up - our enemies are defeated, you've lost." The Dryad shook her head.

"No," she purred, "the forces of darkness have lost. The forces of Aslan will win - I will destroy you, and the monarchs, and every last human in Narnia. And I will make this nation what Aslan wanted, not what the lies of the brood of Eve have told us." She smiled and stretched her arms, almost seeking to embrace Elizabeth. "Come now, give up – you are fighting against the power of a century-old Dryad standing in Narnia, you cannot win."

Wearily, Elizabeth shifted her grip on the ax, holding it in two hands and swaying where she stood. "I think," said Elizabeth, "it's time for you to be cut down to size."

And then she swung with the ax at the base of Hedera's vine, biting deep into the fibrous wood, pale green sap leaking from the wound.

The Dryad screamed, shuddering in agony as the blow struck. "No!" she howled. "Please! Mercy!"

Elizabeth's face was stone as she raised the ax again, it crashing down on the wood. Hedera shuddered and screamed once more, trying vainly to move to defend her one weakness. But she could not move fast enough, for every blow arrested her where she stood, the vibrations passing through her and agony contorting her features.

And then Elizabeth's ax sliced again and met empty air, glancing off the stone in a shower of sparks. She turned to look at the space where the Dryad had been, but – save for a rotting pile of mulch seeping into the cracks between the stones - there was nothing left.

Elizabeth slumped to the ground, the ax falling from her limp fingers, her wounds suddenly catching up with her. The enormity of what she had done and seen - the death of Rapine, her friend - struck her anew and tears poured down her face, her shoulders heaving and herself on the verge of hysteria. She was barely aware of Edmund and the wolves of the West limping over to her - none unwounded, but with the unmistakable scent of victory on them - and the King putting an arm around her shoulder.

A clatter of hooves, and the three other Monarchs were dismounting in front of her. With an effort, she mastered herself and stood, wincing as her ankle threatened to give way and supporting herself on Edmund's shoulder. Around the feet of the monarchs great cats clustered, exchanging sarcastic ribbing with the wolves, and swooping down behind them all were five massive creatures that could only be Gryphons. Elizabeth had no idea who these people were, or indeed if she was _supposed_ to know who these people were - her mind was foggy and her memory barely functioning.

There might have been words to say or, rather, mused Elizabeth as her mind began to return, there might have been words that could have been said. But she was too tired and drained to say them, and she suspected those around her were too. So there was quiet silence amid the half-ruined castle, as human and beast and mythical creature simply stood together, shoulder to shoulder, and exulted in victory.

One face was missing, realized Elizabeth. She turned, looking for Michael, and then the breath stopped in her throat.

Gliding down from the sky high above the center of the battle, haloed by the sunlight now burning away the clouds, was something which could only be an Angel - great pinions of gold and crimson feathers bore a Greek statue given flesh through the air, robes billowing in an immaterial gale and the light of the cosmos blazing from eyes that were windows onto eternity.

"Time to go home, Elizabeth," said Michael.


	45. The Moral of the Story

**Chapter Forty-Five : The Moral of the Story**

The colour drained from Elizabeth's face as, around her, Narnian monarchs and Lords and Captains and Marshals lowered their heads and sank to their knees. For the briefest of seconds, anger flickered over the celestial face of the Angel.

"See that you do it not!" he snapped, "I am but a servant of your Master, as you yourselves are." Hurriedly, like children caught in naughtiness, they obeyed, standing as ramrod straight as their weariness and wounds would allow. The Angel's burning gaze swept them all.

"At ease, please," he said, and the action was so like the old Warlord they had come to think they knew not a one of them could save himself from brittle laughter. Only Elizabeth's eyes remained locked in rapture on the face of the Angel, seeing the man who had lead her here as he was meant to be seen – if mortals could see him at all.

"_Michael_," she gasped, realising what that name meant, a look of unalloyed joy spreading over her face. The Angel nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Men have been asking that question for a very long time, Elizabeth," his ageless voice resonated, echoing like a bell cast in clear crystal and causing spikes of exquisite pleasure down the length of her spine. She could not, for a second, imagine what might be stopping her falling to the floor – not out of subservience, but because of complete and total overwhelming fear and joy and dread and wonder – but, if it were anything, it would be that voice. His wings gently unfurled, slowly but as inexorably as expanding pack-ice, creating a gale that dislodged rocks and sent chunks of masonry flying faster and further than the blows from the Dragon's tail had, and yet which barely ruffled the hair of the faithful. He slid through the air towards her, coming to rest at the end of his glide within an arm's reach – an impossible distance – towering impossibly tall. "And for all those years I have tried to lead people to the answer." He paused. "Mika'el?" he asked in perfect Hebrew.

"Ego sum," she answered without a single instant of hesitation. _I am the Image of God in a corrupted universe. I am the Breath of God in a universe starved of oxygen. I am the Name of God in a silent universe. I am the Will of God imposed on a chaotic universe. I am Man, made in His image; I can rise higher and fall further than any other being in the whole of His Creation._

And Michael _smiled_.

He smiled in a way that made Elizabeth realise just how small and tawdry and inconsequential the reasons for any other smile were. Suddenly, she realised what a true smile was – and at the same time marvelled how she couldn't remember what his face looked like without it. For a second, for a heartbeat, she stared into the face of uncorrupted Creation, into the central movement of the symphony God had sung to make the dawn of time. Pure, raw, unmingled Charity poured from the visage of the Angel, outstripping light, faster than time, scouring and cleaning like bright jewels of smokeless flame.

For an ageless second, she hung suspended, transfixed by an emotion she had never dared dream was even within the realm of her imagination. And then the smile vanished from Michael's face and she was herself again.

"I have to go home, don't I?" she asked, her voice and eyes trembling. Michael nodded his head. She half turned her face away. "I would have liked to have seen . . ." She paused, and looked up into the Angel's fathomless eyes. "I understand – that's why I was brought here, wasn't it? That by knowing Him here I might know Him there."

Michael did something she did not expect – he leaned forward, his massive wings drawing around the two of them like a curtain, casting her into a glowing shadow of golden light. "That is not all, Elizabeth," he said so softly the others could not hear, "although what else there is I do not know." Into her surprised face he reminded her, "The stair of created beings rises far above me, Elizabeth – it is not given to those you call Archangels to know all things, nor indeed all we might desire." His wings unfolded from around her, pulling back the veil of luminous shadow between her and Narnia for the last time.

"And we won't see you again?" Susan asked Elizabeth. The older woman turned to Michael, who did not twitch even a muscle to say either yay or nay.

"Fare thee well, Lady Elizabeth, Governor of the Lone Islands," said Peter formally, drawing Rhindon to salute her with. "Narnia will not soon forget your aid." His face twisted and he coloured. "Nor I you," he muttered. Elizabeth smiled coyly and returned the blush.

Beside Susan, Lucy was sniffling, the memory of saying goodbye to an older woman too close to the vague remembrances of the parting on a crowded railway platform. She tangled her fingers in the hem of her tunic and tried not to suck her thumb. Susan put her arm around her shoulders and pulled her sister toward her. The younger girl buried her face in Susan's doublet as Susan blinked back tears.

"Goodbye, Elizabeth," she said at length, "I'll miss you." And then Susan's arm left Lucy's shoulders and the two women ran for each other, embracing and sobbing into the other's long hair. After a moment, Lucy wailed and flung herself at them, clinging to their legs.

Peter sniffed and tilted his head back, furiously wiping what he hoped people assumed were embers and battle-detritus from the corners of his eyes. Edmund smiled at him and whispered in his ear.

"You can cry, you know." His brother turned to him with red-rimmed eyes.

"Big boys don't cry, Eddie – you know that." Edmund smiled his own watery smile.

"No, but perhaps High Kings do." Before he could embarrass his brother further, the Duke of the Lantern Waste stepped forward. Elizabeth disengaged from Susan and wiped the tears from her eyes.

"The Governor of the Lone Islands begs leave to surrender her office, Sire," she said through the constricting tightness in her chest. She wanted so badly to look around her for one last time, to burn the image of Narnia into her mind, but she found she could not look away from the grey eyes she had followed for so long. Edmund bowed his head.

"The Crown of Narnia accepts your abdication, Lady Elizabeth, and recognises the immeasurable service you have rendered unto us," Edmund managed to say. He closed his eyes against the pressure behind them. "Like my sister, I will miss you – not just for your service and loyalty, but for your friendship and love." He clenched his fist. "Damnit all," he growled. She stepped toward him and took his face in her hands.

"Edmund," she quavered, "we both knew it would come to this in our heart of hearts – I can't stay here, it's not my world. I've got a world and a life of my own to live." He nodded bitterly.

"And I'm not part of it, I understand." She shook her head.

"No, you are very much a part of it. I will never forget you – any of you." She smiled weakly. "All I have to do is open a book." Even as she said that, it sounded tawdry and cheap. _How can this be fictional?_ she asked herself, _When it feels as good and as real as this, if this isn't the truth then I don't want the truth. _She turned to face Michael, fingers caressing Edmund's face like she wished she could caress her son's. "And you're just a prayer away, aren't you?"

But there was odd about her turn in place. She had the distinct impression she was remaining stationary while the rest of the world – or several worlds – rotated around her. The landscape of Narnia – and Edmund and Susan and Michael and the rest – blurred like watercolours in the rain and a soundless noise filled her ears.

Elizabeth found herself, impossibly and somehow unpleasantly, pushing a glass-fronted door open, stepping into a warm, stuffy room – the air heavy with the scent of coffee and thick, sticky pastry. Her eyes adjusted to the light as her shoulders flexed under the unaccustomed lightness of her suit. Her stocking-clad legs goose-pimpled in the chill that curled in from the snow-covered square outside.

She wasn't in Narnia. She was in a coffee shop, off Der Michaelerplatz, in Vienna. The most magical and wonderful city in Europe; the birthplace of a whole cuisine, dynasties of Kings and Princes, entire orchestras of musicians, parliaments of statesmen and whole armies of generals.

It felt cheap and tacky and horribly, horribly unfair.

"Kann ich ihnen helfen?" asked the pretty Austrian girl behind the counter. To call her a barista would have been to imply that Starbucks hadn't been named after someone who was neither more nor less than a pirate.

"Oh, ah," said Elizabeth, thrust harshly back into cruel reality by the irony of having been able to survive in a totally alien world for months with just English, and now groping for her German. "Einen grossen Kaffee, bitte," She paused, as she heard the bells of the Church being to chime. _Oh, Lord! It was Christmas Eve!_ "Zum mitnehmen," she added briefly.

The girl dimpled her harsh Bavarian beauty as she reached for the large waxed paper cup and sent high-pressure steam screaming through coffee grounds into it. Elizabeth leaned against the counter and didn't seem to hear the questions from the American couple standing next to her, asking her if she knew the Queen. She felt drained, tired, utterly shattered. _What was the point of it all?_ she wondered, _Where did I even go? What happened to me?_ She looked at her hands – the manicure she had got in Paris was as perfect as it had been when she left Charles de Gaule on the turbo-prop to Hamburg. _Did it even happen?_

The girl put the coffee in front of her. She handed a ten Euro note to the girl and took her change, holding it in one hand and the coffee in the other. She pushed out of the coffee house into the cold, lonely chill of the snow-smirched square, looking around her.

Ahead of her, the tall white tower of Die Michaelerkirche reached high into the sky in tiered splendour, white against the midnight blue of the sky. Below it, the argent Renaissance façade of the building – classic without being truly Classical – loomed on one side of the square. She looked at it for a second, heard the chimes roll over her, saw the clock in the square standing at quarter to eleven, and shook her head and made to walk back to her hotel.

_It's all very well in Narnia,_ she said to herself. She very deliberately turned her back on the Church.

"Fräulein?" asked a ragged man, huddled against the snow in a doorway, holding gloved and grimed fingers up at her. She started, having walked past him, and then – as her conscience pricked her – turned back to him and handed him the coffee and her change. "Danke schön, Fräulein."

It was too late – her eyes had been drawn back to the Church and the statue above the pitched roof of the porch, the miniature basilica topped with the great alabaster figures of Saint Michael the Archangel and Satan; the devil writhing beneath him, his eagle's wings twisted, a gleaming golden shield in Michael's fist and a sword raised to strike.

_ He found me when no-one else was looking – when no-one even knew I was lost. How did he know just where I would be?_

Everyone else in that square, perhaps – most in that Church – would have called that battle nothing more than a legend, a myth. Something to illustrate a deeper truth. But she knew better – she knew that battle had been real. She knew the being that had – at the dawn of time – sacrificed his brother to protect humanity.

And she knew the Person who had done far, far more – far more than she could imagine or dream.

_It's all very well in Narnia,_ she said to herself, as she span on her heel and moved with resolve towards the great black door of the Church, _but it's better here._ She pushed the door open, stepping into the warm darkness of the interior, gilt and marble lit by scattered congregations of candles, the stained glass inky smudges against the walls, and a phalanx of corrupted cherubs tumbling in a marble cascade behind the high altar. The scent of incense washed over her like a memory and, for a second, she simply stood – the cold at her back and her face to the warmth. Her eyes snapped open as an elderly man dressed in clerical black with a Roman collar smiled and spoke to her.

"Guten Abend, Fräulein. Frohe Weihnachten!" He made to move off. She snapped out of her reverie.

"Vater, Warte!" The Priest stopped, turned and smiled back at her. She opened her mouth, trying to articulate everything she had to say. Her German had deserted her.

"I've been away a long time."

oOo

**This story is dedicated with thanks to the following people**

The Gwethil - who have put up with me rabbiting on about this for months!

Wiltshireman - for his constant excellent reviews and advice and friendship

Alymra - for her support, inspiration and advice - and the name of a Faun

Amberle - for the use of a song and lots of support

Lizaanne - who has put up with me not being there because I was writing this!

_Everyone_ who had reviewed even just once - you are all beloved of me and I wouldn't have finished this without you

_**The story continues with "The Redemption of Sulva" - a Cosmic Trilogy adventure**_


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